Preamble

[Mr. Speaker in the Chair]

PRIVATE BUSINESS

PROVISIONAL ORDER BILLS

Ministry of Health Provisional Order (Banbury Water) Bill.

Ministry of Health Provisional Order (Harrogate) Bill.

Ministry of Health Provisional Order (Wetherby District Water) Bill.

Read the Third time, and passed.

Oral Answers to Questions — HOSTAGES, GERMANY (RESPONSIBILITY)

Mr. Martin: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether, in view of the large number of hostages now being held in Germany, he will take steps to inform the German military leaders that they, as well as the Nazi chiefs, will be held personally responsible for the safety and well-being of these persons?

The Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (Mr. Eden): I am not sure what the hon. Member means by hostages. But I am glad of this opportunity of stating publicly that the German military leaders, like the Nazi political leaders, will be liable to punishment for any crimes, for which they can be shown to be responsible, committed against members of the United Nations detained against their will on German or German-occupied territory.

Mr. Martin: Does the right hon. Gentleman not think it likely that there will be an interlude and a breakdown of all civil government in Germany towards the end of hostilities and that during that period the military leaders will be more powerful than the Present Nazi leaders,

and should they not be made responsible for the safety of people like M. Herriot?

Mr. Eden: I think my answer covers that hypothesis, too.

Commander Locker-Lampson: Do not allow the guilty to escape to neutral countries.

Oral Answers to Questions — TANGIER (BRITISH SUBJECTS AND INTERESTS)

Mr. Boothby: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he can give any further information regarding the present position in Tangier?

Mr. Martin: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether, in view of the recent disturbances in Tangier, he is satisfied that the threat to British and international interests by Spanish policy no longer exists?

Mr.Eden: His Majesty's Consul-General has been informed that up to 5th June between 70 and 80 out of some 200 persons arrested, none of whom were British subjects, had already been set free. I understand that no fresh arrests have been made this month and further releases of those arrested are being effected day by day. Meanwhile His Majesty's Government have received a communication from the Spanish Government stating that the measures adopted in Tangier were taken without any desire to prejudice British interests and that it is the earnest desire of the Spanish Government to find a satisfactory solution. His Majesty's Government have taken note of this communication.

Mr. Boothby: Is my right hon. Friend satisfied that Jew baiting has ceased for the time being?

Mr. Eden: All the information that I have is what I have given in the answer, which is that releases have taken place. My hon. Friend will bear in mind that His Majesty's Government have already drawn the attention of the Spanish Government to the bad impression caused here by these events.

Mr. Lipson: Are any of those who are still under arrest British subjects?

Mr. Eden: No, none arrested or under arrest, as far as I am aware.

Oral Answers to Questions — ROYAL AIR FORCE

Leased and Purchased Land (Value)

Mr. Stokes: asked the Secretary of State for Air (1) how the value of the 10,400 acres of land held on lease by his Ministry at an annual rental of £40,267 was arrived at;
(2) how his Department arrived at the value of 58,223 acres of land purchased by his Department since 31st December, 1938, at an inclusive cost of £3,763,433;
(3) whether the buildings and improvements on the land rented by his Department, totalling 10,400 acres at an annual rental of £40,267, will accrue to the landlords without cost or what arrangements have been made whereby the landlord contributes to the Exchequer for any such improvement?

The Secretary of State for Air (Sir Archibald Sinclair): The value of the land held on lease was assessed by competent valuers as the fair commercial value ruling in the locality at the time of the agreements to lease, which were negotiated before the war. No guidance as to rateable value was available in the majority of cases as the land was. agricultural and de-rated. The value of the purchased land was that accepted by both sides by agreement, or in default of agreement prior to the war, that fixed by arbitration before one of the official Arbitrators. In assessing values, my advisers have had the benefit of consultation with the Valuation Department of the Inland Revenue. The question of reversion to the landlord of buildings and improvements on the leased land depends in each case on the terms of the lease.

Mr. Shinwell: Was the amount paid in all these cases in any way related to the market value of the land before the war?

Sir A. Sinclair: Yes, as indicated in the terms of my answer.

Mr. Stokes: Was all the 58,223 acres agricultural land, and therefore de-rated?

Sir A. Sinclair: All agricultural land was at the time de-rated; therefore I have no knowledge of the rateable value.

Sir Granville Gibson: Is there any obligation on the Government to reinstate the buildings on the land?

Sir A. Sinclair: That depends on the terms of the lease.

Aircraft Hands

Mr. Bellenger: asked the Secretary of State for Air, What proportion of men in the Royal Air Force are occupied in the unskilled occupation of aircraft-hand. Group V?

Sir A. Sinclair: The number of aircraft hands is 13.3 per cent. of the total number of airmen in the Royal Air Force.

Mr. Bellenger: What opportunities are there for upgrading into the tradesman's group of this particular group?

Sir A. Sinclair: Opportunities are numerous. Perhaps the hon. Member will put down a question on any particular point in which he is interested.

Bombing Targets

Commander Sir Archibald Southby: asked the Secretary of State for Air, whether, in view of the success which was achieved by the Royal Air Force in their assault upon the dams in Germany, he will put the hydro-electric plant in the Val d'Aosta and the Rumanian oil wells, from which Germany gets supplies of oil, high on the list of priority targets?

Sir A. Sinclair: My hon. and gallant Friend may be assured that all suitable bombing targets are kept under constant review. It would not, however, be in the public interest to discuss the priority accorded to them.

Sir A. Southby: Does the right hon. Baronet appreciate, in regard to targets in Italy, that in view of the ordeal through which Malta has so triumphantly passed, now that we are able to do so it is about time that we bombed military targets in Rome?

Sir A. Sinclair: The choice of targets for bombing is dictated by military considerations.

Major-General Sir Alfred Knox: Is it advisable to ask a Question like this, which serves as a direct warning to the enemy?

Commander Locker-Lampson: Do not bomb Rome.

Parliamentary Candidature

Mr. Parker: asked the Secretary of State for Air the reason for the issue of Air Ministry Order A.457 (1943), which withdraws from regular airmen the war-


time right, which they have shared for two years with war-time Service men, of standing as Members of Parliament or becoming Parliamentary candidates?

Sir A. Sinclair: My hon. Friend is under a misapprehension. The Order referred to makes no change in the position of regular airmen, which has always been governed by paragraph 1092, Clause 2, of King's Regulations and Air Council Instructions. The purpose of the new Order is to consolidate and clarify the instructions about participation in politics by non-regular personnel and retired officers re-employed.

Unfinished Houses, Sankey, Lancashire

Sir Robert Young: asked the Secretary of State for Air why the arrangement to build 283 houses in Sankey, Lancashire, was not completed, in spite of the Air Ministry's undertaking, as stated in its letters of 25th August and 14th September, 1939; whether he is aware that there are approximately 40 houses in various states of construction, some almost ready for habitation, which are greatly needed for Warrington's housing needs if the Air Ministry's demand is satisfied; and what the Ministry's financial commitments were and are in relation to these houses?

Sir A. Sinclair: The building project referred to was a pre-war private venture which was, I understand, suspended for lack of finance. No undertaking regarding the completion of the estate is contained in the letters referred to, nor has the Air Ministry entered into any financial commitments in this matter. I have no information as to the state of the property which is not required for occupation by employees of my Department.

Sir R. Young: Why did letters pass between contractors and the Department if the right hon. baronet had no interest in the matter?

Sir A. Sinclair: It was before my time, but I understand that the Department thought it might have some interest at the time. The letters contained no commitments on behalf of my Department.

Sir R. Young: Did they not state decisively that there was nothing to be done and that all priorities would be given to this firm to build the houses?

Sir A. Sinclair: I understand that that is not a fair summary of the contents of the letters.

Operiational Aircrews(Life Insurance)

Mr. Liddall: asked the Secretary of State for Air whether he will consider the promotion by the Air Ministry of a life insurance scheme for operational aircrews on a voluntary basis?

Sir A. Sinclair: Operational aircrews, like other members of His Majesty's Forces, are covered against combatant risks by benefits provided by the State.

Mr. Liddall: Does the right hon. Baronet mean by that that they will receive assistance from the R.A.F. benevolent fund?

Sir A. Sinclair: I do not think the hon. Member can have heard what I said. Operational aircrews are covered against combatant risks by benefits provided by the State.

Reading Matter

Lieut.-Colonel Sir Thomas Moore: asked the Secretary of State for Air, what complaints have been received from Royal Air Force units as to the deficiency of magazines and other reading matter provided for them; and what action he proposes to take?

Sir A. Sinclair: A few general com-plaints of the shortage of recreational literature have been made. This shortage is due to war-time restrictions, but such steps are being taken to improve the position as the limitations of paper supply will allow.

Sir T. Moore: What are these steps? I got the same answer from the Secretary of State for War, that the position would be rectified. What steps has the right hon. Baronet taken to rectify the position?

Sir A. Sinclair: A number of steps are being taken, with the help of the War Office. There is no big single measure that can be taken, but in a number of ways we are trying to increase the supply of this recreational literature. The scheme is administered by the War Office. They have been most generous to us and have given us a full share of the available literature.

Auxiliary Air Force

Sir John Mellor: asked the Secretary of State for Air why personnel, who joined the Auxiliary Air Force before the war upon an undertaking that they would not


be posted from their original units without their consent, are, upon completion of their engagements, being simultaneously discharged and called up for service in the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve so as to deprive them of the civilian right to appeal to a hardship tribunal.

Sir A. Sinclair: The expansion of the Royal Air Force made it essential, in the interests of operational efficiency, to employ experienced men wherever their services were most needed. In the case of Auxiliary Air Force airmen this could not be done without their consent, because of their restricted terms of service based on pre-war enlistment. The great majority responded to an appeal to accept general service. Some, however, have not done so and since they are not employed to the best advantage, those of military age are being discharged on completion of their Auxiliary Air Force engagement, following which they will be called up for service in the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve. While, under these arrangements, the airmen concerned will have no right of appeal to a hardship tribunal, it will be open to any one of them who feels he has strong compassionate or other grounds for leaving the Service to apply through the appropriate channels for his discharge. Any such application will be given most careful consideration according to the circumstances of the case and the needs of the war.

Sir J. Mellor: As these men are being called up under the National Service Acts, why should they not be allowed their rights under those Acts?

Sir A. Sinclair: The answer is that they have never in fact lost their military status. They remain in the Royal Air Force, and they are called up the moment their period of service under their original arrangement expires.

Sir J. Mellor: Will my right hon. Friend take the opinion of the Law Officers of the Crown as to the legality of this proceeding and let me know the result?

Sir A. Sinclair: I will not undertake to do that, but as my hon. Friend has been good enough to draw my attention to this point, I will look specially into it.

Mr. Mathers: Surely if these men are called up by the Ministry of Labour and National Service, they are entitled to all

the privileges that that Ministry allows those who are called up for national service?

Sir A. Sinclair: They were already obliged to render general service, and the only right of which they are now being deprived is the right to continue to serve in a particular squadron. There is no change in their status.

Wing-Commander Hulbert: Is it not a fact that only one per cent. have refused to sign the certificate?

Sir A. Sinclair: It is slightly more than that, but the immense majority have signified their willingness to accept these obligations.

Aircrews (Commissioning)

Wing-Commander Hulbert: asked the Secretary of State for Air whether he can make any statement in regarding to the proposed change in the present policy of commissioning Royal Air Force aircrews?

Sir A. Sinclair: With the concurrence of my hon. and gallant Friend I will circulate in the OFFICIAL REPORT a short statement of the present policy and practice in regard to the commissioning of Royal Air Force aircrews. No change in this policy is at present contemplated.

Wing-Commander Hulbert: Has my right hon. Friend received any representations from the Canadian Government on this matter?

Sir A. Sinclair: Not as regards the commissioning of crews in the Royal Air Force.

Following is the statement:

The Royal Air Force view is that it is not necessary or desirable that aircraft, any more than small naval craft or tanks, should be manned exclusively by commissioned officers. Nevertheless, the policy is to commission all pilots, observers, navigators and air bombers who are found to possess the necessary qualities, personality, character, and powers of leadership and command. These qualities can best be tested on actual operations or by service as flying instructors; but in order to encourage the right types of volunteers to offer themselves for aircrew duties and to encourage them to put their best efforts into their training, it has been


found desirable to allow about a third of the pupils to be commissioned at the time when they get their wings. Commissions are granted later to all those who, in actual operations or on instructional duties, show themselves to possess the necessary qualities.

Commissioning in these later stages on the basis of recommendations by the commanding officers of the aircrews, and every encouragement is given to the latter to recommend for commissioning all aircrews who possess the necessary qualities. They are required to review monthly from this point of view the claims of every airman aircrew serving under them. It has been found that, generally speaking, under these arrangements only about one-half of the pilots, observers, navigators and air bombers do, in fact, qualify for commissions; but more can be commissioned whenever a larger proportion is found to be qualified for commissioning. A limit is prescribed for the numbers of commissions that may be granted to wireless operator/air gunners and air gunners, but this is not allowed to operate to prevent suitable men who are recommended for commissions from getting them.

Oral Answers to Questions — LOST AIR LINER

Wing-Commander Hulbert: asked the Secretary of State for Air whether he can make any statement about the loss, through enemy attack, of a civil aircraft flying between Lisbon and Great Britain last week?

Sir Malcolm Robertson: asked the Secretary of State for Air whether the British Overseas Airways Corporation's air-liner, destroyed by enemy action on 2nd June, left Lisbon by daylight; whether this is the usual practice in the case of air-liners leaving Lisbon for the United Kingdom; and whether he will give instructions that this practice must cease during war-time, in view of the danger involved owing to the presence at Lisbon of enemy agents?

Sir A. Sinclair: On rst June a civil land-plane, plainly marked as such, reported from off the Bay of Biscay that it was being followed and shortly afterwards that it was being attacked by an enemy aircraft. As nothing further was heard from it, it must be presumed lost. The Royal Air Force immediately undertook

a search, and the Spanish Government despatched a destroyer. I regret to say that no trace of the aircraft or of its occupants has been found. Thirteen civilian passengers and a crew of 4 were on board. The aircraft was owned by the Dutch company K.L.M. and operated by them on the U.K.-Lisbon service under charter to the British Overseas Airways Corporation. As has been customary, the aircraft left Lisbon by daylight. The risks of interception on this service and the routes and schedules to be followed have been kept under review since the service started three years ago. That only one accident has occurred during this period shows that no undue risks have been taken. With the increased intensity of air warfare over the Bay of Biscay certain further steps have been taken to reduce the chances of interception, but it would not be in the public interest to give details.
The House will wish to join with me in expressing its sympathy with the relatives of those who lost their lives and its appreciation of the help so readily given by the Spanish Government in searching for survivors.

Wing-Commander Hulbert: Has any protest been made through the Protecting Power about this incident, and what compensation will be payable to the passengers?

Sir A. Sinclair: I cannot answer the second point without notice. The first point is a matter on which my hon. arid gallant Friend should address the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs.

Mr. Shinwell: Were the improved methods of interception to which my right hon. Friend has just referred decided upon since the accident or before?

Sir A. Sinclair: I did not refer to improved methods of interception. I referred to the increased intensity of air warfare and the increased efforts of the Germans to intercept aircraft over the Bay.

Commander Agnew: Does my right hon. Friend accept responsibility for the protection of civil aircraft flying on this route, or is protection only afforded to persons who are travelling in the public interest?

Sir A. Sinclair: I accept responsibility for the protection of aircraft. I am respon-


sible to this House, and I can assure my hon. and gallant Friend that we do our best with the resources available.

Mr. Shinwell: There was some misunderstanding about my question. I understood my right hon. Friend to say that because of the increased intensity of air warfare certain improved methods of protection have been decided upon. Were those decided since the accident or before?

Sir A. Sinclair: The methods of routing and of avoidance rather than interception are under constant review. Routing is under constant study, and certain steps have been taken quite recently.

Mr. Lipson: What type of machine was this?

Sir A. Sinclair: It was a D.C.3.

Oral Answers to Questions — POST-WAR CIVIL AVIATION (AIRFIELDS)

Mr. Thorneycroft: asked the Secretary of State for Air whether he is aware that a number of municipalities who have spent large sums of public money on the development of airports are anxiously awaiting some pronouncement by the Government of its post-war civil aviation policy, and that it is essential in the interests of civil aviation that they should be in a position immediately the war ends, if not before, to proceed with further development so that they may be capable of dealing with all kinds of civil air traffic; and will he make a statement?

Sir A. Sinclair: Yes, Sir. Well developed airfields must be and will be made available both for our overseas and for our internal air services after the war. It is not possible, however, at this stage of the war to determine the position of particular airfields in the post-war organisation of civil air transport. Meanwhile, the technical problems involved are being closely and actively studied.

Mr. Thorneycroft: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that these air ports, particularly the two in Manchester, were provided at the request of the Air Ministry; that as £750,000 has already been spent on their development, and as in February of this year the Corporation submitted schemes to the Director-General involving

a further expenditure of £250,000, they would like some pronouncement on this matter?

Sir A. Sinclair: I can assure the hon. Member that the documents to which he refers are being carefully studied

Mr. Ellis Smith: Can the right hon. Gentleman undertake that the rights of municipalities will be safeguarded in the development of civil aviation?

Sir A. Sinclair: I can assure my hon. Friend that we attach great importance to the co-operation of the local authorities.

Oral Answers to Questions — FOREIGN LANGUAGE PERIODICALS

Wing-Commander Hulbert: asked the Minister of Information how many periodicals and daily papers are published in England under the auspices of foreign Governments and organisations; what is the weekly amount of paper used; and whether he will publish a list of these publications in the OFFICIAL REPORT?

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Information (Mr. Thurtle): I regret that not all the information required by my hon. and gallant Friend is available. Certain papers and periodicals published in this country in foreign languages or under foreign auspices receive assistance from the Ministry of Information or other Government Departments to enable them to obtain paper. They number 87 in all—8 are dailies, 2 are bi-weekly and 18 are weeklies; the remainder are published fortnightly or monthly or even less frequently. They serve the needs of various sectional interests, literature, news, politics, and technical subjects. They have consumed paper at the rate of 27.4 tons per week. There are also a considerable number of other papers and periodicals published by foreign interests without any assistance from the British Government. Their circulation is small but I have no information as to their paper consumption. A list of the assisted publications is being prepared for circulation in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Wing-Commander Hulbert: Does not my hon. Friend think that one paper per country is sufficient?

Mr. Thurtle: The whole matter is under consideration.

Mr. Shinwell: Is this the reason for the intensified salvage campaign?

Sir Percy Hurd: When will an answer be given on this matter which was raised three months ago? The number has since increased from 60-odd to 80-odd, and cannot some stop be put to the increase?

Mr. Thurtle: I have answered the request in the Question for statistical information.

Following is the list:

Oral Answers to Questions — BRICKLAYING

Mr. Bossom: asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Works the number of bricks required to be laid on a straight wall under the Essential Work Order in a day; and what was the normal number laid in a typical pre-war undertaking?

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Works (Mr. Hicks): For the most usual types of brickwork, namely 4i inch and 9 inch pointed both sides, the datum line laid down in the Payment by Results Scheme under the Essential Work (Building and Civil Engineering) Order is 24o and 336 bricks per bricklayer respectively for an eight hour day. Bonus is payable for output in excess of this datum. I regret that no accurate information is available as to the normal number of bricks laid in a typical pre-war undertaking.

Mr. Bossom: Can my hon. Friend state the approximate number which he would have required them to lay when he was in charge of operations of this

nature? Would it not have been over twice this number?

Mr. Hicks: I think that would be very unfair to the other bricklayers.

Mr. Higgs: Is the Parliamentary Secretary aware that under exceptional circumstances 4,000 bricks a day have been laid?

Mr. Kirkwood: You could not handle 4,000 a day, let alone lay them.

Mr. Austin Hopkinson: In view of the scandalous state of affairs disclosed by the hon. Gentleman's answer, what steps does the Ministry of Works mean to take to put an end to it?

Mr. Hicks: I think it has to be remembered that the industry has contributed well over 500,000 of its young personnel to the Services and to munition work, and I beg hon. Members to remember that the industry in consequence has become age-heavy. Furthermore, I would ask them to try to relate the building we are considering now with the type of building that was engaged in pre-war. With door-


ways and with window openings and with varying heights and all those things to be taken into consideration, I can assure my hon. Friend that it is not an unfair number.

Mr. Holdsworth: If this rate of laying bricks is maintained after the war, will it not make post-war housing absolutely impossible?

Mr. Hicks: No, Sir. The question is affected by the type and character of the work. It may be easy to multiply the figure given by. three, and that is frequently done to-day, but with 4½ inch brick building, pointed both sides, together with the other facts I have indicated, I suggest to hon. Members that it is not an unfair figure.

Oral Answers to Questions — RAILINGS REMOVAL, FOREST OF DEAN

Mr. Price: asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Works, whether he is aware that the requisitioning of iron railings in the Forest of Dean may lead to the straying of the livestock of commoners, exercising ancient grazing rights in the forest, on to gardens and enclosed lands; and whether he will instruct his officials to exercise special care in dealing with this matter?

Mr. Hicks: The greatest care in circumstances similar to those described by the Hon. Member has been urged on all my officers since the commencement of the campaign for the recovery of railings. I am aware of the special considerations which apply to the neighbourhood of the Forest of Dean, and I have issued instructions that further work on the removing of railings shall be suspended pending further investigation pinto local conditions.

Mr. Price: Is my hon. Friend aware that in the Forest of Dean there are old cement works containing tons of scrap iron which has been there for years and is absolutely untouched?

Mr. Hicks: I am well aware of that, and, as the hon. Member must also be aware, my Department has been in consultation with the owners, and discussions have been going on for quite a long time. I think the matter is now being cleared up.

Oral Answers to Questions — ROYAL NAVY

Reading Matter

Sir T. Moore: asked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether the supply of magazines and other reading matter available for the Navy is adequate to meet the demands; and whether any action is being taken?

The First Lord of the Admiralty (Mr. A. V. Alexander): For an account of the arrangements for the supply at Government expense of magazines and other literature to the Navy, I would refer my Hon. Friend to the reply which I gave to the hon. and gallant Member for Ormskirk (Commander King-Hall) on and June. My hon. Friend may be interested to know that during the 12 months ending 31st March, 1943, the Royal Naval War Libraries supplied no fewer than 600,000 books of various kinds to the Fleet, of which it is estimated that about half were magazines. Although periodical shortages in supplies on board are inevitable owing to ships' movements, no representations have been made to the Admiralty that the supply of books and magazines is not adequate. As regards daily newspapers, there are considerable difficulties, 'but this of course is a shortage which the Navy shares with the community at large. The possibility of an increased supply of newspapers to the Navy in common with the other Services is, however, at present being considered.

Barge Sinkings, Welsh Coast

Mr. Ammon: asked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether he will make a statement concerning the report on the naval disaster off the Welsh coast, in which a number of naval ratings and marines lost their lives?

Mr. Alexander: The Board of Inquiry to which I have previously referred has now completed its full investigations, and the results have been carefully examined by the Admiralty. For operational reasons alone, I cannot go into the full details of the unfortunate loss of the two vessels off Milford Haven. I can however assure the House that in the findings of the Board there is no question of the disaster being attributable to negligence. In order to meet the varying requirements of modern war, numerous types of small craft have to be built, and the wide range of the war makes it necessary for such vessels to be


moved, not only round our own coasts, but also on.occasions even further afield. That this has been done with so few accidents is to the credit of the authorities concerned and of the crews of the craft themselves.
The fundamental cause of the tragedy at Milford Haven was that the weather changed suddenly, in spite of favourable forecasts. A deep depression came over at a speed far greater than expected. In spite of modern science, circumstances of this nature do sometimes arise, and it was unfortunate that on this occasion these barges encountered a high wind and sea and an unfavourable tide in a difficult and dangerous area. The vessels were sailed in good weather and with the prospects favourable, but unhappily the weather, after a sudden change, deteriorated with a rapidity unusual even for St. George's Channel. The commanding officers never-the less decided that they could make Milford Haven. They arrived off the place at midday on 25th April. By this time conditions were severe, with a full gale blowing onshore and with a heavy and confused sea.
The-flag officer in charge at Milford Haven at once took steps to secure that every possible attempt was made to bring these craft safely into the harbour. He sent two tugs and two trawlers to their assistance, and diverted H.M,S. "Rosemary," an escort vessel which was in the area, to the scene. These vessels did all in their power under most dangerous and difficult conditions to help the barges to safety. They succeeded in passing a tow several times, but owing to the heavy seas the tow parted on each occasion. Finally the barges foundered, one at 6 p.m. on the 25th and the other at 1 a.m. on the 26th. In spite of all the strenuous and gallant efforts by the rescue ships, 72 members of the crews of the barges lost their lives, as well as the six members of the crew of "Rosemary's "whaler, which was launched in a courageous attempt to pick up survivors.
I should like to express the deep sympathy of the Board of Admiralty with all those who have suffered bereavement as a result of this tragic occurrence.

Mr. Ammon: Is my right hon. Friend aware that it is alleged in the neighbourhood where this happened that the occurrence could have been prevented had the

officer on the spot had authority to cancel the instructions, and, if that is so, can arrangements be made that that will be done in future?

Mr. Alexander: There is not a word of truth in any suggestion of that kind. Commanding officers have full instructions as to what to do in certain circumstances. The flag officer on the spot took every possible step.

Mr. Guy: Will the bravery of the officers and men concerned in the rescues be noted?

Mr. Stokes: Is the right hon. Gentleman completely satisfied with the design and seaworthiness of these craft?

Mr. Alexander: They have proved extraordinarily good craft for their purpose, and they have made very long voyages.

Mr. Kirkwood: The right hon. Gentleman said a tow had been thrown twice and that bath times it was ineffective. Is any regard going to be paid to that fact in order to see that the tows that are used are better tows than these and able to take on the task that was asked of them?

Mr. Alexander: Such things are always kept most carefully under review as a result of every inquiry which reveals anything bearing on them, but, as anybody who knows, that coast will realise, in a very, very heavy gale and with such seas as there were on that occasion, it would require something almost supernatural to overcome the assaults of nature.

Oral Answers to Questions — WEST INDIES

Colour Bar

Mr, David Adams: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he is aware that there exists a colour bar in the staffing of a banking institution, of which he has been advised, in the West Indies; and whether he will make representations to the directors of this concern that, as in almost all other West Indian concerns, this practice should be discontinued?

The Secretary of State for the Colonies (Colonel Oliver Stanley): I have received the hon. Member's letter, and I am making inquiries.

Mr. Adams: May I ask whether it can be stated that the policy of the Government is that colour, all other things being equal, shall not be a bar to employment?

Colonel Stanley: Most certainly. Of course, the hon. Gentleman realises that it is not a question of employment under the Government.

Mr. Riley: If it is established that the statement in the hon. Member's Question is correct, will some action be taken by the Government to put an end to that state of affairs?

Colonel Stanley: That question is purely hypothetical. I had better complete my inquiries first.

Rice Production

Mr. Riley: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether, in view of the known shortage of home-grown food, particularly rice, in the West Indian Colonies, any action is being taken to make more land available for food crops in Trinidad, Jamaica and British Honduras by the reclamation of swamps which, which reclaimed, can be readily adapted for rice production?

Colonel Stanley: A scheme for the drainage of one large area of swamp land in Trinidad for rice production has been approved, and supervisory staff has been appointed, but the work is impeded by shortage of labour and difficulty in providing certain heavy equipment. No such schemes have been undertaken either in Jamaica, where it is considered that the local population are unlikely to be willing to take up this form of agriculture, or in British Honduras, where the cost of reclamation would probably be prohibitive.

Mr. Riley: But is the right hon. and gallant Gentleman aware that the United States Government have been reclaiming swamps in the West Indies, in connection with the new naval bases, that this work is now being completed and that -the machinery and tackle might be made available for reclaiming swamps for food production?

Colonel Stanley: The hon. Gentleman will realise that the one Colony about which he did not ask is British Guiana. That, of course, is the one Colony where there is considerable scope for this kind of thing.

Social Security

Mr. David Adams: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies in which of the West Indian Colonies old age pensions schemes exist; whether it is intended to extend these schemes to other islands; and whether there is any intention to meet the local demand for inquiry into the possibilities of more comprehensive social security prvisions?

Colonel Stanley: Old age pension legislation is in existence in Trinidad and Barbados only, but similar legislation is contemplated, or is now under consideration in the Bahamas, British Guiana and British Honduras. Interest in the possibility of establishing social security schemes is being evinced in a number of Colonial territories, both in the Caribbean area and elsewhere, and I am at present considering how best to advise Colonial Governments on the many intricate problems which may arise.

Mr. Adams: Is it not a fact that these proposals for social security and other reforms are of considerable age? Can the matter not be expedited?

Colonel Stanley: I do not know of any instance where any application for help from me has been left unanswered for a long time.

Oral Answers to Questions — PALESTINE (JEWISH IMMIGRATION)

Mr. David Adams: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether, in view of the fact that shelter and emigration of Jewish refugees to Palestine are being restricted through the operations of the White Paper, it is intended to amend this document in the light of prevailing war-time requirements?

Colonel Stanley: The immigration of Jewish refugees into Palestine is not being restricted through the operations of the White Paper. It is the practical difficulties involved which have prevented the admission to Palestine of Jewish refugees from enemy and enemy-occupied countries. The removal of these difficulties, as was explained to hon. Members by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs on 19th May, is not yet within the control of His Majesty's Government or that of the United
Nations. In these circumstances, the second part of the Question does not arise.

Commander Locker-Lampson: Would not the removal of some of these difficulties be possible if the right hon. and gallant Gentleman asked Turkey, to whom we have just given five ships, to allow the use of them for some of these refugees?

Colonel Stanley: If my hon. and gallant Friend would refer to the speech of my right hon. Friend, he would see that he made' it quite plain that, although there are great difficulties with regard to transport, the primary difficulty is the refusal of the Bulgarian Government to go on with the arrangement, in breach of an agreement to which they had already come.

Miss Rathbone: Is it not a fact that, in addition to the restrictions upon immigration imposed by the White Paper, my right hon. Friend has imposed a restriction, which may prove very inconvenient, that only a very small number of the immigrants admitted may be adults? Is he considering the removal of that condition, which is not necessitated by the White Paper?

Colonel Stanley: The hon. Lady is quite misinformed. For this particular scheme a large proportion of children was required. I may say that only because of that large proportion was there any hope of the scheme being accepted by the Bulgarian Government.

Oral Answers to Questions — NORTHERN NIGERIA (TIN MINERS' RATIONS)

Mr. John Dugdale: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies what is the daily ration of men conscripted to work in the Northern Nigerian tin mines?

Colonel Stanley: The corn ration of 8 lbs. per head per week has been increased to 12 lbs., and other modifications have also been made in the ration scale to allow of a more balanced diet. I have asked the Governor for full particulars of the present ration scale.

Mr. Dugdale: In view of the fact that the right hon. and gallant Gentleman stated in reply to a Question two or three weeks ago that he was satisfied with the rations, may I ask how he could have been satisfied if he does not know what it is?

Colonel Stanley: Undoubtedly there would have been a great deal of justice in

the hon. Gentleman's Supplementary Question had I said it, but I did not. What I said was that improvements had been made.

Oral Answers to Questions — MERCHANT NAVY

Reading Matter

Sir T. Moore: asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of War Transport the present arrangements to provide suitable magazines and other reading matter for the Merchant Navy; and whether the supply is adequate to the demand?

The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of War Transport (Mr. Noel-Baker): Large numbers of books, magazines, newspapers and other periodicals are collected and given to the Merchant Navy by many voluntary societies and by other agencies. The Merchant Navy also receive a share of the books collected in post offices and in salvage drives. I am grateful to my hon. and gallant Friend, however, for this opportunity of saying that an even larger supply of reading matter could be used to great advantage, and that it would be much appreciated by the merchant seamen.

Mr. Edmund Harvey: Is any provision being made by the Ministry itself to supply books, without relying on charity?

Mr. Noel-Baker: We have the co-operation of the Ministry of Information, the Ministry of Supply, the British Council and other Governmental agencies.

War Casualties

Mr. Leslie: asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of War Transport the number of merchant seamen who have lost their lives in the service of the country during the war?

Mr. Noel-Baker: I regret that I am not at present in a position to add to the statement made by my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister in answer to a Question by my hon. Friend the Member for Westhoughton (Mr. Rhys Davies) on 26th February last.

Mr. Leslie: Will the Minister give me an assurance that this matter will have further consideration, in view of the very great concern among people at the risks undertaken by our merchant seamen?

Mr. Noel-Baker: Yes, Sir, I can give that assurance.

Mr. Shinwell: Why cannot we have a statement of the number of casualties sustained by the Merchant Service? Recently we had a full statement of the casualties sustained elsewhere.

Mr. Noel-Baker: With my hon. Friend's permission, I prefer not to add to my answer.

Mr. Shinwell: Yes, but can we have a reason why the hon. Gentleman prefers not to give an answer? Is it because of the public interest? Are we not to have a statement of the losses sustained by merchant seamen when we have already been given the losses sustained in other directions?

Mr. Noel-Baker: I have nothing to add to my original answer.

Mr. Shinwell: Is it sufficient for a Minister to say that he has nothing to add? [HON. MEMBERS: "Yes."] It may be sufficient for some hon. Members, but it is not sufficient for me. Can the Minister not give a valid reason why this information is being withheld from the public? [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] What are you afraid of?

Sir A. Southby: Is it not a fact that a figure of over 16,000 has already been published in a pamphlet as the number of casualties?

Mr. Noel-Baker: Yes, Sir, that figure has already been published, and other figures have been published also.

Oral Answers to Questions — HOLIDAY TRAVEL (RAILWAYS)

Mr. Ellis Smith: asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of War Transport (1) what arrangements are to be made to enable those employed in the essential war services and the Armed Forces to have preference in travelling from North Staffordshire and Lancashire to Blackpool, Southport and Morecambe during the holiday period for each locality;
(2) whether he can make a full statement for the guidance of all concerned in reference to reasonable travelling at the holiday period and travel of a restricted kind for stay-at-home holidays and whether any system of rationing travelling

to enable those who greatly need a change to have it is to be tried?

Mr. Noel-Baker: As the answer is rather long, I will, with your consent, Mr. Speaker, and with that of the House, make it at the end of Questions.

Later—

Mr. Noel-Baker: As my hon. Friend may be aware, the railways are now carrying about 50 per cant. more freight traffic, and 50 per cent. more passenger traffic than before the war, while passenger train mileage has been reduced by about 30 per cent. Thus, passenger trains are carrying twice the load they carried in 1939. There has been a particularly heavy increase in the journeys made by Service personnel; in the last 12 months for which I have the figures, the increase was 24 per cent. This is especially true of long-distance travel; of journeys of between ma and 200 miles, 60 per cent. are made by members of the Forces; of journeys of over 200 miles, the figure is more than So per cent.
In view of this great increase of essential travel, and in view of the great strain under which the railways are already working, my hon. Friend will understand that it is not possible to grant additional trains for holiday travel, however desirable that may be. The railways have, therefore, been instructed that their passenger train mileage this summer must not exceed the mileage they were allowed last summer, and that for wakes weeks and similar holiday occasions, there must be no more trains from any town to any holiday resort than there were on the same occasion a year ago. Nor is it possible to provide for holiday travel by such schemes of rationing and priority as my hon. Friend suggests. My Noble Friend has repeatedly and exhaustively considered these proposals; he has always come to the conclusion that they would cause great inconvenience to travellers, that they would require a cumbrous and costly administrative machine, and that the disadvantages would much outweigh the advantages which they might have.
On some long-distance services, the increase of essential travel has caused constant and serious overcrowding. My Noble Friend is now considering whether on theses services a few additional trains can be allowed, on the clear understanding that


they will be taken off again without warning, if war conditions so require. For the rest, however, the Government are obliged to ask the public to accept the same restrictions which were in force last year. I am confident that those who are now considering where they will spend their holidays, will decide not to travel by rail, but to leave the limited space which is available to those who, in the interest of the war effort, require it most.
I gratefully acknowledge the help of those who have organised programmes for holidays at home. The shortage of rubber and fuel makes it impossible to relax the general restrictions on Road Transport Unposed in recent months, but I hope that, where vehicles and personnel permit, something may be done in normal off-peak hours to help workers to enjoy the entertainments which these programmes provide.

Mr. Ellis Smith: We appreciate the difficulties arising out of transport, but is my hon. Friend aware that those who have now been engaged on manual work and essential services for four years are beginning to feel the strain and that the managements in industry and the representatives of the workpeople desire that the workpeople should be given some relaxation, and, if that is so, should it not be done on an organised basis; and is he also aware that this will have an effect on production?

Mr. Noel-Baker: Yes, Sir, I am constantly aware of the increased and increasing strain to which war workers are exposed, and my hon. Friend will understand that I make a statement like this only with the utmost reluctance I and regret, but I am sure that the workers themselves will share our view, that, in this year more than in any previous year, it is essential that train capacity should be reserved for troop movements and for the movement of war material and that the war effort must come first.

Mr. Smith: Will the Minister consider the advisability of approaching the Railway Executive with a view to seeing that those who have been engaged for so long in industrial centres should receive preference where possible?

Mr. Noel-Baker: That is a very difficult question, and I would not like to

make an unconsidered answer, but, broadly speaking, the arrangements will be the same as last year, and I hope that they will give an equally satisfactory result.

Sir Ralph Glyn: Will my hon. Friend consider, in consultation with the Minister of Production, the.publication of the statement hp has just made in factories throughout the country, because if excursions are organised, great disappointment will be caused to those who can go if no arrangements are made for them?

Mr. Noel-Baker: I will consider that valuable suggestion.

Mr. Buchanan: Will the Parliamentary Secretary consider providing extra accommodation on long-distance trains, particularly for Service men; and is he aware of the crowded accommodation on trains between London and Glasgow and the North of Scotland? So many of these men have to travel, and cannot he do something to ease their problem; cannot he reserve extra accommodation for those who have to travel on service?

Mr. Noel-Baker: I would not like to promise that we could add coaches to existing trains, because nearly every locomotive is pulling the maximum number of coaches it can take, but when my hon. Friend reads the statement he will see that on some long-distance services we propose, by the addition of a few extra trains, to relieve the very great congestion which now exists.

Sir A. Southby: Will my hon. Friend bear in mind that the term" workers includes 99 per cent. of the people in this country and especially the very large number of people who serve in His Majesty's Forces?

Mr. Noel-Baker: I will bear that in mind. It also includes the railway train crews, who, perhaps of all workers, have been subject to the greatest strain, and who during the next winter may have a greater strain than ever before.

Mr. Rhys Davies: May I ask the Parliamentary Secretary whether the Department will bear in mind the depressing psychological effect it will have upon the millions of workpeople in Lancashire if they are not able to spend a few days' holiday at Blackpool?

Mr. Noel-Baker: I have said in my statement already that the arrangements that were made last year will be in force again this year, but I do not believe that any worker will be psychologically depressed by the fact that we want to keep the trains to promote the war effort.

Dr. Russell Thomas: When considering the matter, will my hon. Friend bear in mind that many who are fighting our battles in the East have not had a holiday for several years?

Mr. Pritt: Will the Parliamentary Secretary consider whether, by taking off a sleeping car which holds only 12 or 14 people, he could not make room for a large number of additional passengers?

Mr. Noel-Baker: We have already cut sleeping cars to the bone.

Oral Answers to Questions — COAL INDUSTRY

Closed Pits

Mr. Foster: asked the Minister of Fuel and Power the number of pits or

District.

Number of Pits completely closed or being completely closed.
Number of Pits partially closed, involving transfer of men to other pits.


Nothumberland
…
1
3


Cumberland
…
nil
nil


Durham
…
8
1


South Yorkshire
…
2
4


West Yorkshire
…
nil
1


North Derbyshire
…
1
nil


Nottinghamshire
…
nil
1


South Derbyshire
…
nil
nil


Leicestershire
…
nil
nil


Lancashire &amp; Cheshire
…
5
nil


North Wales
…
3
nil


Cannock Chase
…
nil
nil


North Staffordshire
…
3
nil


South Staffordshire &amp; Worcestershire
…
2
nil


Shropshire
…
nil
nil


Warwickshire
…
1
nil


South Wales and Monmouth
…
1
1


Forest of Dean
…
nil
nil


Bristol
…
nil
nil


Somerset
…
nil
nil


Fife &amp; Clackmannan
…
nil
1


The Lothians
…
2
1


Lanarkshire
…
4
nil


Ayrshire
…
nil
1


Kent
…
nil
nil


GREAT BRITAIN
…
33
14

In most cases of closure or partial closure it is too early to judge the effects of the transfers of men. In the majority of those cases where it is possible to form

seams which have been closed by his Ministry in the British coalfields and for each district; and whether increased production has resulted, or otherwise, by this policy at the pits to which the employees have been transferred?

The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Fuel and Power (Mr. Tom Smith): In view of the number of figures involved in answering the first part of the Question, I will, with my hon. Friend's permission, have them circulated in the OFFICIAL REPORT, together with my answer to the second part.

Mr. Foster: Can my hon. Friend say, in reply to the second part of the Question, whether there has been increased production, or not, as a result of this policy?

Mr. Smith: In some cases it is yet too early to judge the value of it. In other cases we are definitely of opinion that the results are most encouraging.

The information is as follows:

a judgment, however, a gain in production has resulted.

My hon. Friend will appreciate that the closing of relatively inefficient pits with a


view to obtaining additional man-power for highly-productive pits, does not represent the entire scheme which is being carried out to ensure the best use of the industry's man-power. A policy of concentration of man-power and machinery on the most productive seams within pits and of technical improvement all round is being pursued, and I am glad to be able to report that the results achieved so far are encouraging.

Labour Disputes

Mr. Foster: asked the Minister of Fuel and Power whether the labour director, national or regional, under the present scheme of operational control in the mining industry, has any powers to intervene in disputes between employers and workmen arising in the industry affecting production with the view of bringing about an early settlement?

Mr. T. Smith: The Labour Directors of the Ministry are willing at all times to give assistance where required in facilitating the settlement of disputes and have already on several occasions done so. They have, however, no power to make decisions in disputes affecting wages or working conditions for the settlement of which adequate machinery has already been established by the two sides of the industry.

Mr. Foster: While thanking my hon. Friend for his reply, in view of the many disputes which have arisen recently in the mining industry resulting in loss of output of coal, does my hon. Friend not think that some steps should be taken by-his Department to intervene in these disputes where there is a deadlock, with a view to bringing about an early settlement?

Mr. Smith: I think that generally the existing joint machinery in districts should handle disputes. Where disputes occur the regional controllers' labour directors make every effort to ascertain the facts and give whatever advice is necessary. We are, of course, always watching these disputes, and do keep in mind that it may be that where there is a deadlock we should take power to do certain things: I say again that it is far better to let the existing joint machinery settle these disputes if it can do so.

Mr. Foster: Am I to understand from the reply just given that these national or

regional labour officers have no power at all to intervene in these disputes, and should they not intervene without being asked to intervene if there is a loss of output?

Mr. Smith: I did not say that they had no power to intervene. I said that they had no power to come to decisions with regard to disputes. In practice if a dispute does occur in any coalfield the regional controllers' labour director immediately gets in touch and does what he can.

London Conference (Report, Distribution)

Mr. Foster: asked the Minister of Fuel and Power whether, as the printed report of the conference of miners' and employers' representatives, held in London on 31st October, 1942, addressed by the Prime Minister, is being circulated among the miners, copies will also be sent to the coalowners, boards of directors and colliery managements, with the view of increasing production?

Mr. T. Smith: The report was distributed to colliery officials as well as to mineworkers and to leaders of both sides of the industry.

Mr. Foster: Have copies of this report been sent to boards of directors and shareholders as well as to the miners?

Mr. Smith: There were 6o copies sent to the Mining Association. Whether they distributed them to directors or not I cannot say, but there has been quite a number of these pamphlets sent both to managements and pit production committees, and they have been asked to distribute them to colliery officials and other people.

Sir Herbert Williams: Could they not be supplied to the Press, and let everyone have the opportunity of reading them?

Mr. Smith: Certainly.

Mr. Foster: Seeing that boards of directors control the pits through the managers, will my hon. Friend see that boards of directors have copies of this- report, so that we may have increased output?

Mr. Smith: I am not sure that sending a copy of a speech to a colliery director would increase output. At the same time if any director of a colliery company wants one, I will gladly send one to him.

Ventilation Plant

Mr. G. Griffiths: asked the Minister of Fuel and Power whether he is aware that at some coalmines when the ventilation fans break down the men continue to work; and whether he will bring in a regulation that will prevent such a practice?

Mr. T. Smith: There was one case of the kind last February, but my right hon. and gallant Friend has not been made aware of any other. The existing law requires that, in so far as any interruption of the ventilation makes it inadequate, persons are not to be employed except to restore the ventilation; and there seems no special need for a further requirement until such time as the law about ventilation can be revised as a whole.

Mr. Griffiths: Does not my hon. Friend understand, being an old miner himself and having worked at the coal face, that if a fan breaks down surely the ventilation is interfered with and that the men should come out of the pit at once? A regulation is required prohibiting any men from being allowed to work in the pit when the fan breaks down. Will my hon. Friend issue that regulation before Whit-sun?

Mr. Smith: I understand the point about ventilation. Section 29 has been the law of the land since 1911. It may be a little ambiguous in its provisions, but there has not been, on the whole, much difficulty with regard to it. In this particular case it has been the subject of a good deal of correspondence. We have pointed out that it cannot be done by Regulation. Whenever we can get legislation dealing with ventilation generally this can be dealt with. In the meantime should any pit stop the ventilation plant, if the Divisional Inspector is informed we will take whatever action is necessary.

Mr. Griffiths: May I ask——

Hon. Members: No.

Mr. Griffiths: Hon. Members know nothing about it. This is vital to the miners; they are risking their lives, and when folk shout "No, no," they know nothing about it. The Joint Parliamentary Secretary understands that this is a very dangerous thing, and it may ultimately cause an explosion at this pit. If a thing of this kind occurs at other places,

it will not be "No, no"; Members will be passing votes of sympathy with 'the people who are left.

Domestic Stocks

Sir J. Mellor: asked the Minister of Fuel and Power whether he will give an assurance that those householders who comply with his appeal to stock coal in excess of normal allowances during the summer under licence will not, over a period of 12 months ending 31st March, 1944, be allowed less coal than they would have been allowed had they not thus stocked?

Mr. T. Smith: Yes, Sir. No one who has been licensed to do so will be penalised for stocking coal. They are only likely to get into difficulties if they disregard the purpose for which they have been authorised to acquire extra supplies and consume excessive quantities early in the coal year; and in that event their position will be exactly the same as that of any other domestic user who has not practised reasonable economy in consumption.

Oral Answers to Questions — PILOT OFFICER'S DEATH IN TRAIN

Mr. Thorne: asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of War Transport whether he can give any information in connection With the pilot-officer, Royal Air Force, who was found dead in a train at Euston on Tuesday night, 1st June; and whether he can say how the man was killed?

Mr. Noel-Baker: According to the information I have so far received, this pilot officer was killed, when he put his head out of the railway carriage window as his train entered a tunnel between the stations of Willesden Junction and Ruston. I take this opportunity of saying how much I deplore this tragic accident and of expressing my deep sympathy with the family of the gallant officer who lost his life.

Oral Answers to Questions — ROYAL NAVY LORRY ACCIDENT, WARRINGTON

Mr. Lipson: asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of War Transport whether he proposes to exercise his powers under Section 23 (3) of the Road Traffic Act, 1930, to hold an inquiry into the accident which occurred


near Warrington, on 1st June, when a motor-truck overturned and three naval ratings, two members of the Women's Royal Naval Service and civilian women were killed and eight others injured?

Mr. Noel-Baker: I understand that the vehicle involved was a Royal Navy lorry driven by a naval rating. An inquest was opened on 2nd June and will be resumed on 2nd July. In view of these facts, my Noble Friend does not propose to order an inquiry.

Mr. Lipson: Might not an inquiry produce some facts and prevent future accidents of this kind causing the loss of very valuable lives?

Mr. Noel-Baker: If this had been a civilian vehicle, I am certain that my Noble Friend would not have ordered an inquiry until after the inquest proceedings. This was a Service vehicle, and I understand that the Services usually conduct an inquiry of their own. I think that will probably be done.

Oral Answers to Questions — PETROL OFFICERS, INDUSTRIAL ESTABLISHMENTS

Mr. Lipson: asked the Minister of Fuel and Power whether he is aware that the present system by which. the petrol officer at industrial establishments is an employee of the firm is open to serious objections; and will he arrange for these officers to be appointed by, and be responsible to, his Department?

The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Fuel and Power (Mr. Geoffrey Lloyd): The answer to both parts of the Question is in the negative.

Mr. Lipson: Does my right hon. Friend agree that it is very embarrassing for an employee to be asked by his employer whether he will allow him petrol or not, and in order that the public may be satisfied that the allocation of petrol is fair, will he give further consideration to the suggestion made in the Question?

Mr. Lloyd: These men are private employees, and all they do is to prepare the applications. It is then for the administrative officers of the Department to consider whether or not they should grant them.

Oral Answers to Questions — CAPTURED GERMAN AND ITALIAN GENERALS AND TROOPS

Mr. Thorne: asked the Secretary of State for War where are General Von Arnim and Field-Marshal Messe, of the Italian forces, and the other 16 generals captured in Tunisia; are they in big houses or in camps; whether they are under military guard; and where the 200,000 prisoners of war, German and Italian, have been sent?

The Financial Secretary to the War Office (Mr. Arthur Henderson): General von Arnim and Field-Marshal Messe, with a considerable number of other senior German and Italian officers, are confined under military guard in large houses. They are all being treated strictly in accordance with the Geneva Convention. The final destination of the prisoners taken in Tunisia has not yet been settled, but they will be held in whatever country is most suitable.

Mr. Thorne: Are the generals in question living separately in these houses, or are they living together in one big house?

Mr. Henderson: The German generals are living separately from the Italian generals.

Oral Answers to Questions — BRITISH ARMY

Grenade Accident, Nottingham

Mr. Thorne: asked the Secretary of State for War whether he can give any information in connection with the officer and 11 soldiers of the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers who were injured during exercises in a quarry at Nottingham on Tuesday night, 1st June, and how many are in hospital?

Mr. A. Henderson: The accident was caused by the premature explosion of a grenade. A court of inquiry is being held. One man was seriously injured but is progressing favourably. The others suffered only minor injuries.

Officers' Battledress

Mr. Lipson: asked the Secretary of State for War whether he has yet decided that officers shall be provided with battle-dress as a free issue?

Mr. A.Henderson: This question is still under consideration.

Mr. Lipson: Can my hon. and learned Friend say when he hopes to be able to arrive at a decision?

Mr. Henderson: No, I am afraid I am not able to specify a date, but I hope it will be in the near future.

Oral Answers to Questions — HAIRDRESSERS (TOWELS)

Mr. John Dugdale: asked the President of the Board of Trade whether he will make some provision by which hairdressers may obtain fresh supplies of towels when the ones they are now using become worn out?

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade (Captain Waterhouse): I cannot at present add anything to the replies which my right hon. Friend gave on 2nd March to my hon. Friends the Members for East Wolverhampton (Mr. Mander) and the Clayton Division of Manchester (Mr. Thorneycroft).

Oral Answers to Questions — OVERSEAS WAR SERVICE (RECOGNITION)

Mr. Ellis Smith: asked the Prime Minister whether consideration has been given to the need for the issue of chevrons to indicate service overseas, medals for service in big engagements, and some indication to signify that men or women have been wounded on service; and can he now make a statement on this matter making it applicable to all Services?

Squadron-Leader Fleming: asked the Prime Minister whether, when consideration is given to the question of issuing medals and chevrons for service overseas, he will remember the great number of personnel in the Armed Forces who are detained in the United Kingdom on highly necessary work instead of being sent or permitted to proceed overseas; and will he consider granting recognition of their services at the same time?

The Deputy Prime Minister (Mr. Attlee): The matter is under consideration, and I am not yet in a position to add anything to the reply which I gave to my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke (Mr. Ellis Smith) on 26th May.

Mr. Smith: Will my right hon. Friend bear in mind that the Government have had ample time to consider this? In view

of the great service rendered by our people in the Armed Forces throughout the world, has not the time arrived when it should be recognised?

Mr. Attlee: We are pursuing the question very closely. It is an extremely complicated matter.

Oral Answers to Questions — PRODUCTION FACTORIES BROAD-CAST MUSIC)

Mr. Frankel: asked the Minister of Production whether the agreement with the Performing Rights Society and Phonographic Performances, Limited, with respect to the "Music While You Work "programmes, applies to all factories engaged upon war work; and, if not, to which factories it does apply?

The Minister of Production (Mr.. Lyttelton): The answer to the first part of the Question is "Yes, Sir "; the second part, therefore, does not arise.

Oral Answers to Questions — RATION BOOKS AND IDENTITY CARDS (DISTRIBUTION)

Lady Apsley: asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food whether, in any large-scale action taken by the Ministry in future, such as the collection of new ration books and identity cards, which primarily affect women as the main collectors, he will consult reputable women's organisations who are now engaged in war work and who have had great experience in the difficulties which face housewives and who understand their reactions to important undertakings required to help the war effort?

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food (Mr. Mabane): Yes, Sir, and in the present instance the Women's, Voluntary Service, in response to an, early approach by my Department, under-took to co-operate both centrally and' locally in the issue, with the result that, by means of local consultations, members of the Women's Voluntary Service in many areas have been able to take an invaluable part in the process of distribution. Other women's organisations have also in particular areas willingly co-operated. I am glad of the opportunity to pay a tribute to the many thousands of women who, as voluntary workers, have in various ways given aid alike in the towns and in the countryside.

Mr. McKinlay: Will the hon. Gentleman pay a tribute to the food executive officers, who advised the Ministry before the scheme started that it would be a flop; and will he tell his Noble Friend that it is undesirable that misstatements should be made over the wireless to the effect that the chaos had been caused in the localities?

Mr. Mabane: No such impression was conveyed by my Noble Friend's speech, if the text was studied. The hon. Gentleman, who is chairman of a food executive committee, can appreciate how the arrangements were made.

Lieut.-Colonel Heneage: asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food the distances, respectively, that the inhabitants of East and West Torrington, Lindsey, have to travel for their new ration cards?

Mr. Mabane: Those inhabitants of West Torrington who find it inconvenient to attend at the central distributing point will be able to obtain their ration books, clothing coupons, and rational Registration identity cards in the village of West Torrington itself. In the case of East Torrington, the documents will be distributed at a sub-office at Legsby, a mile away.

Lieut.-Colonel Heneage: Why were they told originally to walk 14 miles?

Oral Answers to Questions — FOOD SUPPLIES

Milk Policy

Sir P. Hurd: asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food whether the Government have decided upon their milk policy, and especially as regards an effectual system of herd inspection and a fair price to producers of high-grade milk; and when this policy will be made public in a White Paper?

Mr. Mabane: I am not in a position at present to state when a further announcement may be made regarding milk policy.

Sir P. Hurd: Is it not a fact that this announcement was due last April? May we know to-day?

Mr. Mabane: It was not clear to me, from the terms of the Question, precisely what aspect of the milk policy my hon. Friend was referring to. Certain parts

of the Question seem to refer to matters affecting the Ministry of Agriculture. If he will put down a more precise question, I will give him a More precise reply.

Sir P. Hurd: Does not the White Paper cover both aspects of this matter, and others?

Mr. Mabane: And others, yes.

Herring (Distribution)

Mr. Boothby: asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food whether the necessary arrangements have been made for the widest possible distribution of herring throughout the country during the forthcoming season?

Mr. Mabane: My noble Friend does not propose at present to control the distribution of herring, but the necessary facilities are afforded to the trade to enable the widest possible distribution of herring to be made.

Mr. Evelyn Walkden: If control is not intended, does the hon. Gentleman not
intend to arrange some form of allocation, so that working-class districts will get a better share than they did a year ago?

Mr. Mabane: I think the hon. Member will notice that I said that my noble Friend does not intend at present to control the distribution of herring. The control of herring and kippers is extremely difficult, and conversations are going on at present about the distribution of kippers.

Soft Drinks Industry War Time Association

Mr. Linstead: asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food whether, as at the meeting of the Soft Drinks Industry War Time Association, Limited, on 24th June, called to approve a scheme for electing the committee, it will be competent for the Government nominees to outvote the members of the association, he will instruct them to abstain from voting and so enable the members effectively to approve or disapprove the scheme?

Mr. Mabane: No, Sir. My noble Friend would not feel justified in giving a general instruction of the kind suggested by my hon. Friend.

Mr. Linstead: Can my hon. Friend explain the purpose of calling a meeting of


an association to approve a scheme when, in fact, the Government nominees can force that scheme on to an unwilling industry?

Mr. Mabane: It is the desire of my noble Friend that the industry should consider this scheme on its merits. I think my hon. Friend will agree that it would be ridiculous to send representatives to a meeting with instructions to vote this way or that before the discussion has been heard by them.

Mr. Linstead: Are we to understand that if the industry expresses disapproval of the scheme the Government nominees will accept that view?

Mr. Mabane: I think my hon. Friend should understand what I said that, in the light of the discussion, the Government nominees will act with wisdom and justice.

Mr. Linstead: Owing to the unsatisfactory nature of the reply, I beg to give notice that I will endeavour to raise the matter on the Motion for the Adjournment.

Dehydrated Tomato Flakes

Major Lyons: asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food whether his attention has been drawn to the process carried out in the United States of America of dehydrated tomato flakes; and whether, after inquiries, he will consider setting up a similar plant in this country?

Mr. Mabane: Yes, Sir. I am informed that two firms in the United States of America are undertaking this process, but my noble Friend does not see his way to provide plant and man-power for the process here, in view of the requirements of the factories being equipped by my Department for drying other vegetables required for the Forces.

Major Lyons: In view of the present disappearance of fresh tomatoes, as a result of the intervention of the hon. Gentleman's Department, will he reconsider the question of whether some steps can be taken to dehydrate tomatoes?

Captain Plugge: How many plants have we in this country for dehydrating food?

Mr. Mabane: That is another question.

Mr. E. Walkden: Will the hon. Gentleman indicate where he proposes to get the tomatoes to dehydrate?

Mr. Mabane: I said that we were not proposing to dehydrate tomatoes.

Oral Answers to Questions — OPEN-CAST MINING SITES

The following Question stood upon the Order Paper, in the name of Mr. TINKER:

59. To ask the Minister of Town and Country Planning whether he is aware that open-cast mining is taking place on a large scale; that its operation is causing devastation; and will he, in the plan for reconstruction, consider examining the question of afforestation on the sites where the coal has been removed and so make the countryside a place of beauty?

Mr. Tinker: On a point of procedure. I have a Question on the Paper—Number 59—which has not been reached. Shall I be in Order in saying that I shall raise it on the Motion for the Adjournment on the next Sitting Day?

Mr. Speaker: No notice is required for doing that. If an opportunity is found, the hon. Member can raise it.

Mr. Tinker: The opportunity has not presented itself, although the Question is in the first 60 on the Paper. As there will not be much opportunity left, I think I am entitled to make my protest, and to say that I shall raise the matter on the Adjournment.

Commander Agnew: How does the hon. Member know in advance that the reply is going to be unsatisfactory?

Mr. Speaker: It is beyond my powers to answer that question.

Oral Answers to Questions — BLIDWORTH COLLIERY ACCIDENT, NOTTINGHAMSHIRE

Mr. Bernard Taylor: (By Private Notice) asked the Minister of Fuel and Power whether he has any information respecting the pit shaft accident at Blid-worth Colliery, Mansfield, on Sunday, 6th June, when three men lost their lives?

Mr. T. Smith: An accident occurred about mid-day on Sunday last at Blid-worth Colliery, Nottinghamshire, while three men were engaged in cleaning out


the water garlands in one of the shafts. The three men were working from a scaffold on top of the descending cage, and while they were being moved from one garland to another, the two cages collided for some reason at present unexplained, and the men were thrown off, fell down the shaft and were killed. I cannot at present give any further details, but the whole of the circumstances of this unfortunate accident are being fully investigated by the inspectors as speedily as possible. I should like to take this opportunity, however, of expressing my right hon. and gallant Friend's sympathy with the relatives of those involved in the accident.

Oral Answers to Questions — NATIONAL EXPENDITURE

Ordered, that a Message be sent to the Lords to request that their Lordships will be pleased to give leave to the Viscount Bridgeman to attend to be examined as a witness before the Sub-Committee for Fighting Services Inquiries appointed by the Select Committee on National Expenditure.—[Sir Ralph Glyn.]

BILL PRESENTED

PENSIONS APPEAL TRIBUNALS BILL,

"to provide for the bringing of appeals against the rejection by the Minister of Pensions on certain grounds of claims in respect of incapacity for work, disablement or death arising out of the war and against certain other decisions of the Minister of Pensions affecting awards in respect of such claims; to give a statutory right to sums payable under such awards; and for purposes connected with the matters aforesaid"; presented by Sir Walter Womersley, supported by Mr. Herbert Morrison, Mr. A. V. Alexander, Sir James Grigg, Sir Archibald Sinclair, the Attorney-General, and Mr. Noel-Baker; to be read a Second time upon the next Sitting Day, and to be printed. [Bill 42.]

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Ordered,
That the Proceedings on Government Business be exempted, at this day's Sitting, from the provisions of the Standing Order (Sittings of the House)"—[Mr. Eden.]

Orders of the Day — PENSIONS AND DETERMINATION OF NEEDS [MONEY]

Resolution reported:
That for the purposes of any Act of the present Session to amend the law with respect to the treatment of capital assets and superannuation payments for the purpose of determination of needs and with respect to supplementary pensions and to amend the Old Age Pensions Act, 1936, it is expedient to authorise the payment out of moneys provided by Parliament of any increase in the sums payable out of such moneys under or by virtue of Part II of the Unemployment Act, 1934 (as amended by the Determination of Needs Act, 1941), the, Old Age Pensions Act, 1936, or Part II of the Old Age and Widows' Pensions Act, 1940, which is attributable to the passing of the provisions of the said Act of the present Session relating to—

(a) the manner in which money and investments treated as capital assets are to be treated under sub-paragraph (ii) of paragraph (d) of Sub-section (3) of Section thirty-eight of the Unemployment Act, 1934, or under that sub-paragraph as applied by Section ten of the Old Age and Widows' Pensions Act, 5940;
(b) the manner in which superannuation payments are to be treated under paragraph

(f) of the said Sub-section (3) as applied by the said Section ten;
(c) the payment of supplementary pensions to widows to whom an additional allowance in respect of a child is payable as part of a widow's pension, and the continuance of such supplementary pensions after the said allowance ceases to be so payable;
(d) additions to a person's supplementary pension in respect of periods after an old age or widow's pension began to accrue to that person but before the person becomes entitled to receive weekly payments on account thereof;
(e)the calculation of the means of a blind person or the husband or wife of a blind person, under the Old Age Pensions Act, 1936;
(f) the amendment of the last-mentioned Act in connection with the making of reciprocal arrangements thereunder with the Isle of Man."

Resolution agreed to.

Orders of the Day — PENSIONS AND DETERMINATION OF NEEDS BILL

Considered in Committee.

[Major MILNER in the Chair.]

CLAUSE 1.—(Determination of needs (unemployment assistance, supple mentary pensions and blind persons.)

Mr. Kirkwood: I beg to move, in page 1, line 10, to leave out "four hundred," and to insert "one thousand."
We are moving this Amendment, which stands in my name and those of two of my colleagues, knowing quite well the atmosphere that is being created in our party against our doing anything of the kind, because it is always trotted out to us that, if the party make a move for an advance of Is., there will always be somebody who will want 2S. But in the face of all the criticism we have put down this Amendment, and I want to appeal to Members on the opposite side of the Committee to support us. We are sent here by the working class to represent the working class against the ruling class; we are not sent to co-operate at all. Members opposite always say that we do not represent the working class, that they represent the working class too, and that they have the interests of the working class at heart and all are so very generous in their treatment of us, and act fairly and desire to be decent and to be considered as such. This only affects the working class.


Pensions for friends of hon. Members opposite receiving their thousands a year just come automatically. It is only when our class, the workers, are affected that these objections are raised. This sum represents the results of frugality and thrift during a life of 50 years by people who have tried to put into effect the preachings and the lecturings of those who have been telling the people of my class all these years not to waste their substance but to put something away for a rainy day. In many cases, £400 of savings represents starvation. They have not only starved themselves but they have starved their families to save it. Instead of buying boots for their children, even in the dead of winter, they have put the money aside. That is in my country, which is a different country altogether from England—and, as you see, I am different from you. We are a hardier race, a race that could live on porridge and the children could go barefooted even in the dead of winter. [HON. MEMBERS: "Where?"] In Scotland, but that is a Scotland about which the hon. Member for Central Aberdeen (Sir R. W. Smith) knows nothing. My folk were led to believe that it was advantageous to their well-being to bring up hardy children, and when they should have spent their money and put their money into circulation, buying boots and other necessaries, they were prevailed upon to save for a rainy day or for their old age. Now, when they have scraped and saved every penny they could and have accumulated this sum of £400, it is to be taken into account in the determination of need under this Bill. I ask the Committee to remember that it is the best section of the working class that it is here proposed to penalise. Do not forget that. We say that you ought to extend this limit up to £1,000. It is difficult, I know, for a Member on these Benches to deal with this matter, because so few of them have that amount of money to deal with.

Viscountess Astor: There the hon. Member is wrong.

Mr. Kirkwood: The hon. Lady knows nothing about it. She deals in
millions——

Viscountess Astor: No.

Mr. Kirkwood: —and that is why she is such,an opponent of the Communists.

She is afraid that they will take the millions away, and I would support them in doing it. However, this is a very serious matter for the people on whose behalf I am now appealing. It is a terrible responsibility to place on Members of Parliament to ask them to penalise individuals, especially when we remember that it is only the workers with whom we are dealing in this way. They have had the misfortune to have been born into working-class homes. They have worked all their lives with nothing before them, from the cradle to the grave but the prospect of plenty of hard work, and they have counted themselves lucky in being able to get it. The people with whom we are now concerned are those who have been fortunate enough, as a result of hard work all their days, to have got a sum of money— £500 or £600 or in some cases up to £1,000and it is now proposed to penalise them under this Clause. We ask you not to do so. We ask you to raise this limit up to £1,000, and that is the Amendment which I have much pleasure in moving.

Mr. Gallacher (Fife, West): I support the Amendment so ably moved by the hon. Member for Dumbarton Burghs (Mr. Kirkwood). I do not think any Member opposite would dare to get up in this Committee or before any body of people in the country and argue that the working man or woman who had laboured in factory or mine for 50 years, or the mother who had maintained a home for 50 years, because he or she had a sum of £400 in the bank should be refused consideration in the matter of supplementary pensions. I know that some hon. Members opposite if they woke up one morning and discovered that all their worldly possessions had been reduced overnight to the sum of £400, would think the world had come to an end. Guards would be required on Westminster Bridge to prevent them attempting a nose dive and thus ending it all. Yet people are to be penalised in this way because, after 50 years of arduous toil, they have managed to get together that amount of money.
The hon. Lady the Parliamentary Secretary, who has the onerous task of trying to maintain and uphold the views of the Minister of Health, has on many occasions rhapsodised about the value of the home in British life and the great and noble part which the mother plays. Yet


she is prepared to say that such a mother, after 50 years of hard work—not three days a week or six or seven hours a day, but day in and day out, every day, including Sunday—should be penalised if she has been saving. The other side have used the platform and the Press and the pulpit, which the Minister of Health so often adorns, to encourage thrift among the people. I once saved a sum of
£10 7s. 6d.. After regular visits to the bank that was the amount to my credit. Then an impecunious pal decided to get married and borrowed the £10 from me, and my wife borrowed the 7s. 6d., and I never saw a penny of it. It was a lesson to me, because I have never put a deposit in a bank from that day to this. But other people took the advice of the Minister and the young Tories of the day, the young, vigorous progressives who say they intend to lead a new crusade. Where are they? My hon. Friend the Member for Dumbarton Burghs claimed to represent the working-class, but Members on the other side said, "We represent the working class." But those hon. Members do not; they only deceive them. When there is any question affecting the health and well-being of the working class, Members on the other side always consider first how it will affect their property and their bank books.

The Chairman: Will the hon. Member address himself more to the Amendment?

Mr. Gallacher: I was just giving an illustration. Members on the other side have friends and acquaintances, whom they meet in clubs and such places, drawing pensions of £1,000, £1,500 or £2,000 a year. Can they conceive the Minister coming along and saying, "We have decided to make a change; we intend to stop your pension, and if you have £400 in the bank you will not get more than 10s. a week"? Let hon. Members on the other side put that to some of their friends, but if they do, let them see that there is an ambulance standing by. I know the Minister will be well aware of the warning in the Scripture:
Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt,"..
I hope that moth and rust will not get at the Minister. It is not moth and rust which is getting at the old folk in this country; the menace to them is the Minister, and when he goes into the pulpit next time I hope he will take that as his text

and explain where he stands in relation to these old people who happen to have saved a little money. If the Minister gives the matter the consideration it deserves, he will see that he cannot justify the penalisation of these people. I ask him to accept the Amendment and make the capital sum £1,000.

Mr. Quintin Hogg: I trust that the affection with which the Committee rightly regards the two hon. Gentlemen who have proposed and supported this Amendment will not persuade the Minister to give in to them. The hon. Member for Dumbarton Burghs (Mr. Kirkwood) claimed that he had been sent here by the working class to represent them against the ruling class and not to co-operate. The trouble is that in moving this Amendment he was not representing the working class; he was representing small capitalists, and he was not representing that class of small capitalists against the ruling class but against the working class, and on these grounds, therefore, I regard the Amendment as totally unjustifiable. Members of the working class in this country do not, for the most part, possess £1,000 capital. The hon. Member for Dumbarton Burghs has not yet fully appreciated that the people who would pay for the concession for which he is asking for the small capitalists are, in the main, people who have not £1,000. In the name of the working class—and the young Tories, as the hon. Gentleman rightly reminded us, have always claimed, rightly, to represent their genuine interests—I protest against this Amendment. If I had proposed a counter-Amendment to raise the sum to £20,000, could not every argument proposed on the opposite side have been equally well adduced in support of such an Amendment? The point is that there must be a limit somewhere.

Mr. Kirkwood: Of course, a reasonable limit.

Mr. Hogg: Not one word uttered in the eloquent speeches of the two hon. Members opposite gave any reason why £1,000 should be the point.

Mr. Kirkwood: The reason why we fixed the limit at £1,000 was because it is so rare for a member of the working class, because of privation, to acquire £1,000. That is why we did not go beyond that figure. If we had, we would have gone into the ranks of the small capitalists.

Mr. Hogg: I think we are all agreed that it is quite wrong to do what originally was the principle, namely, to say to a man who has saved a little money during his working life,". You have to spend the whole of this before you can get a supplementary pension." To say that discourages thrift. Although we agree that on the whole children should support their parents, we also think it wholly wrong that children who cannot afford to do so because they have children of their own should be made to contribute to their parents. I think we are all agreed that there does come a point when, in the interests of the taxpayers, which is the working class as a whole, you have to say that money which has been put aside for a rainy day must to some extent be spent when that rainy day comes along. That is not unreasonable, but what is unreasonable is to say, "You can continue to preserve intact your block capital of £1,000 for your children without benefiting from it yourself, and you can ask other working people to support you while you do it." This Amendment is not conceived in the interest of the working class; it is conceived in the interest of small capitalists, and what is worse from the Socialist point of view, although better from mine, is that it is conceived in the interests of heirs of small capitalists and not the man who has earned it. If the Amendment was agreed to, it would assist heirs rather than old people.

Mr. McGovern: I rise to support the Amendment, because I think it is generally conceded by all Members that there should be some limit. The only question in the Committee at present is whether it should be £400 and then a part of the money taken by an allowance each week of 6d. upon each £25 that exceeds £425. I think it is reasonable to assume that any person who has saved £1,000—and I agree that it must be a very limited number indeed—should be allowed to benefit in any way he desires by that money. If they have earned the money, if they have even hoarded the money, there might be other people with larger incomes who have spent money in a reckless manner, and therefore we may say they benefit by the fact that they were not thrifty and that those who were thrifty are being penalised to a certain extent.
What amazes me in connection with a number of Conservatives in this House

is that they have quite a different attitude, towards what they term the small man with £1,000 from what they have towards people who are higher up in society. We never hear these arguments trotted out when pensions are being paid to members' of the Royal family. We do not hear it said that the father and mother should provide for them and that they are not to be given £1,000 a year income or a very substantial salary. We do not hear it in regard to ex-Cabinet Ministers when they are given two-thirds of their serving salary. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] What have they? They only require to declare that they are in need, and they are given an allowance. [Interruption.] It is true that Members who have served on that front bench have drawn an allowance. It may not be an important point, but we are entitled to have the truth. We may have raised the point continually in regard to the very substantial pensions paled to the heirs and successors of people like Lord Nelson. But we discover that a different attitude is taken by the Tories. They are prepared to pay these substantial pensions in perpetuity, without inquiring into their assets in any way, but, when it comes down to small men, the microscope is applied.
I am amazed at the hon. Member for West Fife (Mr. Gallacher), who continually gets up and castigates the Tories for their misdeeds and then he and his friends go outside the House and, on platforms and at street corners and hoardings with his Communist circus going round the country at by-elections, he asks the workers in the name of national unity to vote for and return these enemies of the working class. I cannot understand that line of policy. These Communist-backed Tories come here and vote down the working class, and he says they are the enemies of the working class. If they are the enemies of the working class, it would be better if they adopted his line of conduct outside the House rather than the line of conduct that he attempts to indulge in in the House. I am bound in political honesty to say that that sort of thing, which is going on continually around the country should not be tolerated in any political assembly.
To get back to the question of pensions I approve of this£1,000 limit, and I think


the Labour Party should have a great deal of sympathy with it because most trade union leaders would come under it. I think £400 is rather a niggardly limit and, while not attaching tremendous importance to it, there are other snags in the Bill which are much worse- than this. I think we should set that limit, and the Conservatives should also preach a policy similar to that which they preach in the country by encouraging them to be thrifty. If they listen to the advice and save up a sum of money, they should be able, on top of their old age pension, to extend that money over a period of years, whether its for a holiday, for a pension for members of the family or for education. I certainly support the. proposal and shall support it in the Lobby.

Mr. Silkin: We have heard a great many debating speeches and have had a good exhibition of the laundry process in public. I listened with great interest to the hon. Member for Oxford (Mr. Hogg). I think he proved too much, which is always the danger of making a debating speech. I imagine that when Clause I comes to be called he will support it. He will support the increase from £300 to £400. On his argument he will be supporting the passing of £400 more than was formerly the case at the expense of the working classes, whom he is alleged to represent. I do not understand that attitude. Why does he increase it to £400? Ought he not rather either to have moved an Amendment to cut out the whole of the£300 and make every penny of capital accountable, which would be logical according to his argument, or at least to oppose the raising of it from £300 to £400?

Mr. Hogg: The reason why I admire the increase and resist the greater increase is exactly the same as would animate the hon. Member if I proposed an increase to £20,000.

Mr. Silkin: I do not know what is in the hon. Member's mind. I am merely addressing myself to the argument that he put forward. On that argument he would have no justification for supporting an increase from £300 to £400. Indeed, he would have every justification for not supporting any figure at all. But I want to ask the Minister, assuming that he cannot agree to £1,000—I agree that £1,000 is quite as arbitrary as £400—

whether he could not see his way to increasing the figure of £400. I know something about the kind of amounts that working-class people leave. It is part of my professional business to deal with their estates. It is fairly common to find a working-class estate of £1,000 or less. It is not as uncommon as my hon. Friend suggests, and, if it were, there would not be much point in the Amendment. It is fairly common though by no means the rule.

Mr. Gallacher: I consider that it is very uncommon in Scotland.

Mr. Silkin: I do not presume to talk of Scotland. I am bound to admit that my own experience relates to London and the neighbourhood. I also admit that the
£1,000 would also possibly include the value of a house, which is already covered. Nevertheless, I think that £400 does not really cover the working-class position. I should think £750 would be a reasonable figure. Whatever figure is agreed upon, a certain income is assumed for the owner of the capital. If the figure is greater, the owner will be assumed to be in possession of a larger income, and in that way he will get a smaller allowance. If the right hon. Gentleman were seeking to do justice to the worker and not to penalise thrift—I am sure he would be the last to wish to do that—he would see his way to accept some higher figure than £400. I do not put it higher than that, because £1,000 is probably too high, just as £400 is too low. I hope he will see his way to make some concession on the point.

Mr. Glenvil Hall: I support what my hon. Friend has said. It appears to me that £1,000 is possibly much too high a limit and that £400 is too small. I think that will be generally agreed by everyone who realises how money values have changed and how the standard of living of the working classes has gone up. I do not know whether the Minister will agree to a higher figure or whether he thinks that £750 is much too high. But I should be pleased, seeing that he has gone from £300 to £400, if -he would be willing to go a little more and make it £500, or even £600. We are dealing with people who are worthy of support. They are people who, often at some sacrifice, with an eye to the future and with the desire not to make themselves a burden on the community, have put


money by, and it is a pity to penalise them if we can help it. During the war a great deal of propaganda has gone on for the saving of a large proportion of the wages that are now earned. Some of these savings have gone into War Loans and are being taken care of, but quite a number of people have put money into investments of another kind, and it would appear to me, in the light of modern circumstances and the differing values of money, and for a number of other reasons which are familiar to hon. Members, that £400 is too small. If £300 was thought reasonable 20 years ago, surely something more than a £100 advance is necessary now if even bare justice is to be done. I hope the right hon. Gentleman will see his way to making some increase, even if it cannot be the £1,000 proposed.

Mr. Ralph Etherton: The two hon. Members who spoke last seem to be agreed that the figure of £1,000 is too high. Surely the test is, What is the correct and proper figure in all the circum-stances? There must be a ceiling. Everyone will probably agree that a fantastic figure, for example £10,000, is too high. The hon. Member for Peckham (Mr. Silkin) himself agrees that it is too high.

Mr. Gallacher: Is not the hon. Gentleman aware that the Government are paying out pensions to people with £10,000? It is only when it comes to the workers that there is a limit.

Mr. Etherton: That is quite irrelevant to the point under consideration. The question is, What is a reasonable figure in all the circumstances? The Clause proposes an increase of no less than 33⅓ per cent. There has been an increase in the cost of living over the last 20 years, and I would have thought that an increase of 33⅓ per cent, more than met it. One could argue that another £50 would be proper or that £50 less would be proper. One can always argue either side of a figure which is thought to be reasonable, but I suggest that the figure in the Clause does in all the circumstances do justice to the case.

Mr. David Adams: I am strongly inclined to support £1,000. After all, it merely represents the savings of a lifetime at the rate of £20 per annum. In the mining areas relatively few ex-workers

will have that amount, and the liability upon the State will not be as great as it would be if the whole country were London. The notion that a person reaching pensionable age aught to feel satisfied with mere living conditions without the possibility of holidays, or of assistance to their dependants in need, or of entertainment in their declining years is unreasonable. Under ideal conditions provision for that character would be made. If our industrial conditions are such that opportunities for making this provision are very rare among the working class, pending a much higher remuneration and a greater proportion of its share of the national income to labour, it is an obligation upon the community to make this additional provision. It has been suggested that £750 might be considered fair and reasonable, but I am at a loss to understand why we should make this discrimination between that and £1,000. The whole argument is in favour of the improvement where necessary of the status of the old age pensioner who has exhibited commendable frugality, and his position ought to be met by the concession asked for in the Amendment.

Sir Robert Young: I am not so much concerned about the amount of the sum as about the amount that it will return. In all these alterations of law the amount of the income from the capital sum should be the same. I know people who invest their little savings in building societies. If they had £300, it brought in 5 per cent. before the war, which came to £15 per annum free of Income Tax. The return from many building societies is now reduced to 2⅓ per cent., so that £400 will bring in only iro. The Minister should reconsider the matter from that point of view. If he did, he would arrive at a sum between the £400 and the £1,000.

Mr. Storey: I hope the Committee will not agree to the Amendment. We all want to encourage the man who has been thrifty, but what does this Bill do for him? A man may own his own house. He may have superannuation of ros. a week which is disregarded. He may have £400 in ordinary savings and £375 in war savings, which are disregarded.

Mr. Kirkwood: Suppose he has £375 in war savings, that is no use to him at the moment, as there is no income coming in from it.

Mr. Storey: If he puts his money in National Savings Certificates, he can draw it out at any time. A man in such a position has had some measure of prosperity during his working life, and we are entitled to expect that he will use some of his savings to maintain him during his retirement and not call upon his neighbour, who may be a man with a moderate wage and large family responsibilities, to contribute through indirect and direct taxation to his maintenance. I do not believe that the demand for this concession comes from the thrifty man who has saved. A man in that position is usually able to maintain himself without asking his neighbour to contribute to his support. This is, as my hon. Friend the Member for Oxford (Mr. Hogg) pointed out, something that will benefit the relations. It is a relations' racket, and I hope that as such the Minister will resist it.

Mr. S. O. Davies: Invariably we get allegations about the thrift of the working man when a Bill of this kind is before the House, and it is time for somebody to protest. It comes very badly from those who know nothing about thrift. We are dealing here with working people subject to working-class conditions and wages and all the appalling upsets that characterise working-class life. I am sure that the thrifty working man, as well as perhaps the more indifferent working man, would not thank anybody for such speeches as we have heard to-day and when the Bill was last before the House. We are dealing here with miners, railwaymen, blast-furnace workers, engineering workers and so on. I have spent my life among the coalminers of South Wales and worked for a number of years with them in the collieries. What ghost of a chance has a decent, intelligent, working miner to accumulate by means of any rational thrift big sums of money? For several of the years between the two wars when that appalling depression displaced millions of men and women from industry the right hon. Gentleman was Minister of Labour, and he has a great deal, of knowledge of the conditions that obtained then. Let me cite a case that could be multiplied a hundredfold. A working man receives an injury at his work and is in receipt for many months of weekly compensation payments. He ultimately settles up for a lump sum. He might be permanently incapacitated in some degree or other.

After the first £25 of his lump sum the right hon. Gentleman proposes to assess the remainder at is. per £25.
There are cases of serious injury where the lump sum might be £600 or £700. Why not cover men with that amount and do so by increasing the figure in the Bill from £400 to £1000? It has been admitted that £1,000 would be the exceptional case in working-class life. During the depression it was a commonplace in mining areas for an injured or unemployed workman to have two children in a secondary school, I remember the case of a workman who lost an eye in his employment and who had three girls in a secondary school. He recovered and became fit to do light employment. He wanted to settle for a lump sum, because he wished to spend the money on his three girls. He ultimately did settle. Will not the Minister increase the figure to £1,000 to cover such a case? It will cover admittedly only the exceptional case, but that case should be given protection, because if the man has been thrifty he will know how to handle the money reasonably well. The, right hon. Gentleman will not lose a great deal by making this concession, but it will be a gesture and an improvement on the mean gestures that are made so frequently in miserable Bills of this kind.

Mr. Price: I also want to appeal to the Minister to reconsider this figure and raise it above £400. I have much sympathy with the movers of this Amendment, although I would not commit myself to the figure of £1,000 which they recommend. I know, from experience in my own constituency, of large numbers of workers who have little holdings of their own, who have probably inherited a small cottage and a small orchard and have grazing rights in the forest, and it is very hard on them when they come to retire on a pension, having lost their full working wage, to have anything above £400 taken into consideration. Prices have all gone up; the price of stock on their small holdings has gone up, and the cost of repairs has risen. Therefore, I think the figure of £400 deserves reconsideration, because it would result in people who have retired having to stint themselves and to suffer more than is necessary. I am not tied to any actual figure, but I hope the


Minister will reconsider the £400 because
I think that is not enough.

Mr. Buchanan: I have been tempted to intervene by the speech of the hon. Member for Sunderland (Mr. Storey). He was slightly wrong in one of his statements. He spoke about a man having £400 and then £375, but at £400 the man get nothing at all.

Mr. Storey: I said he could have £375 of war savings and up to £400 of other savings.

Mr. Buchanan: He cannot have £400. It must be something less than £400. I am not going to argue the general merits of the Amendment, because if ever there was an Amendment that I could feel easy about, it is this one. The number of people in the Gorbals Division affected by it is practically none at all. Some years ago, before the war, the Assistance Board published a statistical table, and it blew sky high the views as to the great numbers of people covered by the contributory scheme—and the only people who will be assisted in this way are people, in the main, who are covered by the contributory scheme. The numbers of people with large sums of money are comparatively small. I wish to put forward two considerations, and I hope that the hon. Member for Sunderland will see on reflection what an indefensible position will arise in a normal state of affairs, leaving out war-time conditions. As I have said, the person who touches £400 gets nothing, but the person with £399 gets 7s. 6d, a week. Therefore, on a difference of £1 in capital, there is a difference of 7s. 6d. a week. Nobody could defend that, and that is one reason for reconsidering the sum. He gets nothing if he touches £400, and he loses something on every £25. His basic scale in the winter time is 24s. 6d.—that is on the lowest rent—and-therefore his income is 10s. plus 7s. 6d., leaving the balance that he gets of 6s. 6d. a week; but the lowest rent scale is not the average; the average is something between the lowest rent and the high rent, and so the average is at least 7s. 6d., if not more. There is all that difference over Who can defend that?
This figure of capital causes me less qualms than almost anything, because there are so few people with capital in my division. If ever there was a de

pressed area, it is that area. I was born in it and have seen nothing but depression all my life. I hate to see us making laws which tempt people to descend to little tricks to get shillings, but what are we doing here? We are saying to the man with £405, "Scamper so much of it away, and then you will be able to come in." For that reason the Minister ought to reconsider making the £400 figure higher. After the war the position will prove an utterly indefensible one. Take the case of a man and wife, old age pensioners, living together at home. They may have a grown-up family, all reserved, living at home and working in a shipyard or a steel works, and the old man himself may now be working. If money is good the man and his wife can possibly save now £375 each, and. so when they retire they will have together £750.
Then take the case of the person who before the war was thrifty and saved some money but whose family have all gone into the Army, where they do not earn big money. He cannot put the money he has saved into War Loan, because he possibly tied it up in a building society, or in the Co-operative movement long before the war was thought of. The poorer people are, the more anxious they are about the safety of their money. The amount of interest they get on their money does not concern them so much as knowing that it is in safety. It may be said that those who have saved money and have £400 tied up in what they regard as a safe investment could realise the money, but that is not always true. Take the Clyde Navigation Trust; the money there is tied up for life in many ways, and the only way to realise it is to go into the open market and sell it, which poor people will not do. It comes to this, that there will be people who before the war saved, and whose children are now in the Army, so that they cannot save any more, who will be allowed only the maximum of £399, whereas another family whose children happen to be in callings where they have all been retained at home are able to save money now and put it in War Loan, and they are rewarded by having £750 allowed. The position is really indefensible. Side by side in a Glasgow tenement you will have Mistress A and Mistress B, one with all her sons away in the Army and no chance of saving, and the


other with all her sons at home and a chance of saving. At the end of the war Mistress A, whose sons were all away, will be treated as being on a maximum of £400, and next door will be her neighbour treated as having a maximum of £1,150. Who can defend that?

Mr. Storey: Will the hon. Member carry the parallel a little further by taking in Mistress C, a hard-working woman who has not had the opportunity of saving at all and yet would be called upon to contribute to the supplementation of the woman—or the man—who has been so prosperous that he can save?

Mr. Buchanan: I am not going into that. I say nobody could defend the position which I have outlined, once we have embarked on the policy of exempting a capital sum, in which B, who has been able to save since the war because fortune favoured him by his sons being retained at home, is allowed £1,150, and A, whom the war penalised, is allowed only £400. That is an indefensible position, argue round it as you may. I say to the Minister that he ought to take back this figure. I do not ask him to accept the Amendment, but he should take back this figure for reconsideration and try to face up to the position. I do not think it is fair to talk about some other man having to contribute to supplementation because that is not the issue. The Government have earmarked capital exemption. Let them not differentiate between the person who has been unable to save because the war has penalised him by taking his family away and the person whose family has been retained at home. I tell the right hon. Gentleman that he will find in peace-time that the nation will not stand for the position in which the person who was favoured by the war is favoured to the extent of £750 more than the person whom the war penalised. It will be better for the Minister to face the issue now and even things out.

Mr. Mack: I hope that the Minister will give this matter consideration: Although I am fully in favour of the principle of £1,000, perhaps a more modest sum suggested from these benches might be considered. It is amazing, when we are asked to institute thrift throughout the country, that those who do so are penalised. The sum of £750 is probably worth little more

than about £300 in pre-war real purchasing power, and there are few instances among the working class where people are able to save such sums. Workers save largely because of the fear of unemployment, and they often deprive themselves of the elementary necessities of life in order to do so. By so doing they will be assisting the war effort by not consuming commodities, but if they had consumed those commodities they would have been treated preferentially in the Bill. There is an old song which said:
Tho' there's nothing in the larder, Ain't we got fun? 
Times are hard and getting harder; Still, we've got fun.
There's nothing surer.
The rich get richer and the poor get
poorer, 
But in the meantime and between time, Ain't we got fun?
A working man or women tries by the use of labour to secure some purchasing power in the form of wages, by contrast to the Noble Lady who asked for a definition of a capitalist. A person who is a capitalist employs a number of other people in order to exploit their surplus value for the purpose of accumulating wealth. About 95 per cent, of the people of this country live in fear of economic consequences, particularly after the war. If we were to institute a system by which the workers were entitled to the full fruits of their production there would be less incentive among them to save by refraining from purchasing commodities.

The Chairman: The hon. Member is allowing his remarks to travel a little too wide.

Mr. Mack: I am sorry, Major Milner. If I am not allowed to expatiate on that point, I will leave it. At any rate, it is regarded as a virtue if workers can save out of their meagre earnings. The war may be regarded as a heyday in the workers' life because they can sell their labour.power at a better price and may be able as a consequence to save a little money. There is something extra coming into the house, and there is a dearth of commodities to purchase with it. Because of that, is the worker to be unduly penalised and placed in this difficult position? The right hon. Gentleman might well give careful consideration to this matter. The number of workers involved would be small, but they would particularly appre-


ciate the small concession which would come to them if the right hon. Gentleman were to accept the Amendment.

Mr. Ness Edwards: I would ask the Minister to look at this position again. I am hot enamoured of the Amendment, which proposes to do something which it cannot do, to bring within the ambit of supplementary pensions people with £800 or £900. The contribution from available resources is already fixed at a limit much lower than that proposed in the Amendment, and it would create a false impression among old age pensioners to tell them that we had passed a Measure enabling people with £900 to obtain a supplementary pension. Take the case of a single man needing a supplementary pension. What are his economic resources? They cancel out his needs at about 12s. equalling £300. If he has £300, he is automatically cut out. What is the good of our fixing a new maximum? An effective limit is imposed by the scale on which you treat available resources. If the limit is £1,000, it means that the man with £999 will be persuaded that he has a title to a supplementary pension. I have every sympathy with the desire to give the best treatment to our people, but you have the anomalous situation that a person may acquire £750 from somewhere else—someone may leave it to him—and it will be taken into account, while if the person next door has left £750 in War Loans, that will be solely ignored. The treatment of capital resources must be looked at completely afresh. Let us try to have some equity as between one pensioner and another. For these reasons I ask the Minister to look at the matter again.

The Minister of Health (Mr. Ernest Brown): I am sure the Committee will agree that this has been a very interesting discussion, and it shows that when you touch upon these subjects there is always more than one point of view to be discussed. I will not be drawn into the issues which arise on later Amendments, but will deal with the Amendment before the Committee. It is easy to construct a series of debating points upon it, on one side or another, and all those who have followed the long history of the development of these arrangements under various Acts will know that it is easy to get particular cases and draw comparisons sharply, as the hon. Member for

Gorbals (Mr. Buchanan) drew his comparison just now. Let me come dawn to the origin of this attempt in war-time to deal with capital.
The war savings point arose, of course, not upon supplementary pensions at all, but upon unemployment assistance, because of the demand made by the Trades Union Congress that if they and the Labour Movement as a whole were to join with all the rest of the country in a big campaign to foster war savings, there should be an arrangement whereby war savings were either partially or wholly ignored, up to the permitted amount. We are not now dealing with a 20-year issue, but with a three-year issue, dating from 1940. Hon. Members will see in the Debates on the Bills at that time, speech after speech making the case of the thrifty person who was saving War Savings Certificates, but not of the thrifty person who saved in other directions. What happened? The point was made, considered and met, on the basis that it would be a reasonable settlement. There is no logic in this—you can put your decimal' points where you will.
Having in mind that every concession in these matters means a contribution from the taxpayer, the figure of £375 of war savings, or £750 for two persons, was considered to be a reasonable concession. With regard to those persons whose savings did not happen to be in war savings, I should say that the value of the house they are living in is not taken into account, and after discussion the House decided that £300 was a reasonable sum, in drawing the balance between the taxpayer who would have to pay, on the one hand,. and those who would receive the money on the other.
Since then, the case has been made in this House in open Debate that £300 was rather on the small side. The Government promised to consider it and have considered it, and they have come to the conclusion that, taking all the other arrangements into consideration, it would be reasonable to say £400. There will be cases of persons having both Savings Certificates and other income, and the matter will not always be as sharply defined, as between one house and another house, as hon. Members have suggested. I therefore cannot accept the Amendment, which goes further than that figure.


Question put, "That the words "four hundred" stand part of the Clause".

Division No. 22.
AYES



Agnew, Comdr, P. G.
Graham, Captain A. C. (Wirral)
Owen, Major G.


Albery, Sir Irving
Greenwell, Colonel T. G.
Paling, W.


Apsley, Lady
Gridley, Sir A. B.
Peat, C. U


Assheton, R-
Griffiths, G. A. (Hemsworth)
Pethick-Lawrence, Rt. Hon. F. W.


Astor, Viscountess (Plymouth, Sutton)
Grimston, R. V.
Polo, Major B. A. J.


Beamish, Rear-Admiral T. P.
Hacking, Rt. Hon. Sir D. H.
Plugge, Capt. L. F.


Beattie, F. (Cathcart)
Ha[...]bro, Capt. A. V.
Pym, L. R.


Beaumont, Major Hn. R. E. B. (P't'sh)
Hammersley, S. S.
Radford, E. A.


Beechman, N. A.
Hannah, I. C.
Rathbone, Eleanor


Beit, Sir A. L.
Hannon, Sir P. J. H.
Reed, A. C. (Exeter)


Bennett, Sir P. F. B. (Edgbaston)
Hayday, A.
Read, Sir H. S. (Aylesbury)


Benson. G.
Henderson, J. (Ardwick)
Reid, Rt. Hon. J. S. C. (Hillhead)


Bevin, Rt. Hon. E.
Henderson, J. J. Craik (Leeds, N.E.)
Ritson, J.


Blair, Sir R.
Higgs, W. F.
Roberts, W.


Boles, Lt.-Col. D. C.
Hill, Prof. A. V.
Robertson, D. (Streatham)


Bower, Norman (Harrow)
Hinchinbrooke, Viscount
Robinson, W. A. (St. Helens)


Brocklebank, Sir C. E. R.
Hogg, Hon. Q. McG.
Ross, Major Sir R. D. (Londonderry)


Brown, Rt. Hon. E. (Leith)
Holdsworth, H.
Royds, Admiral Sir P. M. R.


Burden, T. W.
Horsbrugh, Florence
Sanderson, Sir F. B.


Butcher, Lieut. H. W.
Howitt, Dr. A. B.
Savory, Professor D. L.


Campbell, J. D. (Antrim)
Hughes, R. Moelwyn Jeffreys, Gen. Sir G. D.
Scott, Donald (Wansbeck)


Cary, R. A.
John, W.
Selley, H. R.


Castlereagh, Viscount
Jones, L. (Swansea, W.)
Shakespeare, Sir G. H.


Channon, H.
Kerr, H. W. (Oldham)
Shepperson, Sir E. W.


Chapman, Sir S. (Edinburgh, S.)
Kerr, Sir John Graham (Scottish U's)
Smith, Sir R. W. (Aberdeen)


Charleton, H. C.
Key, C. W.
Somervell, Rt. Hon. Sir D. B.


Clynes, Rt. Hon. J. R.
King-Hall, Commander W. S, R.
Southby, Comd. Sir A. R. J.


Cobb, Captain E. C.
Lakin, C. H. A.
Spearman, A. C. M.


Colegate, W. A.
Lamb, Sir J. Q.
Storey, S.


Colman, N. C. D.
Lambert, Rt. Hon. G.
Stuart, Lord C. Chrichton- (Northwich)


Conant, Major R. J. E.
Lawson, J. J.
Stuart, Rt. Hon. J. (Moray and Nairn)


Cook, Lt.-Col. Sir T. R. A. M.(N'flk, N.)
Lees-Jones, J.
Sueter, Rear-Admiral Sir M. F.


Cooke, J. D. (Hammersmith, S.)
Leighton, Major B. E. P.
Summers, G. S.


Critchley, A.
Leslie, J. R.
Sutcliffe, H.


Crooke, Sir J. Smedley
Levy, T.
Taylor, Major C. S. (Eastbourne)


Crowder, Capt. J. F. E.
Lewis, O.
Taylor, Vice-Adm. E. A. (P'd'ton, S.)


Culverwell, C. T.
Linstead, H. N.
Thomas, J. P. L. (Hereford)


Davies, Major Sir G. F. (Yeovil)
Lipson, D. L.
Thorne, W.


De Chair, Capt. S. S.
Lloyd, Major E. G. R. (Renfrew, E.)
Thorneycroft, Major G. E. P. (Stafford)


Denman, Hon. R. D.
Lucas, Major Sir J. M.
Tomlinson, G.


Denville, Alfred
Mabane, W.
Touche, G. C.


Doland, G. F.
MacAndrew, Colonel Sir C. G.
Tufnell, Lieut.-Comdr. R. L.


Douglas, F. C. R.
McCorquodale, Malcolm S.
Turton, R. H.


Dugdale, John (W. Bromwich)
Macdonald, Captain Peter (I. of W.)
Ward, Col. Sir A. L. (Hull)


Dunoan, Rt. Hon. Sir A. R. (C. Ldn.)
McEntee, V. la T.
Watkins, F. C.


Ede, J. C.
McEwen, Capt. J. H. F.
Watt, F. C. (Edinburgh, Cen.)


Edmondson, Major Sir J.
McKie, J. H
Webbe, Sir W. Harold


Edwards, Rt. Hon. Sir C. (Bedwellty)
Makins, Brig.-Gen. Sir E.
Wedderburn, H. J. S.


Emmott, C. E. G. C.
Manningham-Buller, R. E.
Westwood, Rt. Hon. J.


Emrys-Evans, P. V.
Marlowe, Lt.-Col. A.
Whiteley, Rt. Hon. W. (Blaydon)


Etherton, Ralph
Mathers, G.
Wickham, Lt.Col. E. T. R.


Evans, D. O. (Cardigan)
Medlicott, Colonel Frank
Williams, Rt. Hon. T. (Don Valley)


Fox, Flight-Lieut. Sir G. W. G.
Mellor, Sir J. S. P.
Willink, H. U.


Frankel, D.
Mills, Colonel J. D. (New Forest)
Womersley, Rt. Hon. Sir W.


Fraser, Lt.-Col. Sir Ian (Lonsdale)
Molson, A. H. E.
Wood, Rt. Hon. Sir K. (Woolwich, W.)


Fremantle, Sir F. E.
Montague, F.
Wootton-Davies, J. H.


Fyfe, Major Sir D. P. M.
Moore, Lieut.-Col. Sir T. C. R.
Wright, Mrs. Beatrice F. (Bedmin)


Galbraith, Comdr. T. D.
Morgan, R. H. (Stourbridge)
York, Major C.


Gammans, Capt. L. D.
Morrison, Rt. Hon. W. S. (Cirencester)
Young, A. S. L. (Partick)


Gates, Major E. E.
Mort, D. L.



Gibbins, J.
Nicholson, G. (Farnham)
TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—


Gibson, Sir C. G.
Nield, Lt.-Col. B. E.
Mr. Adamson and Mr. Boulton.


Gledhill, G.






NOES


Gallacher, W.
Reakes, G. L. (Wallasey)
TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—


Gruffydd, W. J.
Sloan, A.
Mr. Kirkwood and


Maxton, J.
Stephen, C.
Mr. McGovern.


Pritt, D. N.
Stokes, R. R.

The Deputy-Chairman (Mr. Charles Williams): Before I call upon the hon. Gentleman the Member for Colne Valley (Mr. Glenvil Hall), perhaps it may be as

The Committee divided: Ayes, 186; Nose, 8.

well, with the agreement of the Committee of course, to have the general discussion on this Amendment and on the following Amendment standing in the name of the


hon. Member for Dumbarton Burghs (Mr.. Kirkwood). They can both be taken as separate Amendments if it is wished to move them both.

Mr. Glenvil Hall: I beg to move, in page r, line 12, to leave out "sixpence," and to, insert "fourpence."
The reasons why some of us are trying to get this alteration are, I think, well known to the Committee. As the law stood before this Bill was brought in, an individual was allowed to have up to £300, or rather £299 19s.11 ¾d., without having any part of that capital touched. At the same time the Government decided that although the capital itself should remain intact, what should be regarded as interest on that money should be taken into account when determining the means of any applicant for old age pension. The first £25 was to be exempt, and every £25 thereafter was to be considered as though it was bringing in 1s. per week. The effect of that was that there was an assumption that the old age pensioner who had money of this kind invested was receiving something nearly approaching 10 ½ per cent. per Annum. It may be that certain investments have in the past brought that amount in, and it is possible that some fortunate people even -to-day can find investments which will bring them in a like amount or even more, but it is very unreasonable to suppose that ordinary working-class people have money invested which at any time can bring in any sum approaching that figure.
Time and time again in this House approaches have been made in order to try and get the is. lowered to some more reasonable figure, and in the past all our efforts were in vain until the Minister of Health introduced this particular Bill. As we all know, when he introduced it he raised the capital sum to £400, and reduced the amount which it was supposed that the money would bring in to 6d. per week. Sixpence per week means that it is supposed that the capital sum will bring in nearly 5 ¼ per cent. That, of course, is more like reality, but it is still far above what most people find they can get from an investment. When we were engaged on the Second Reading of this Bill the Minister of Health referred to this matter, and I intervened to ask him how he arrived at the proposed figure of 6d. In reply he expressed surprise that anyone

should think that was an inadequate concession and thought that, all things considered, it was reasonable. In the interchange that followed quite a number of Members took part, including Members on the other side of the House. That indicates that support for the change which I propose is not confined to these benches. The hon. and gallant Member for Accrington (Major Procter) asked the Minister of Health
Would the right hon: Gentleman tell us what investment there is in the whole country which would produce that?
—that is, an amount equal to 3s. 6d. per Week on up to £224 19S. 11d. The Minister of Health replied:
These questions, of course, beg the issue. I am rather surprised at them, because I thought the House would regard this as a very generous concession, having regard to the. point of principle."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 20th May, 1943; col. 1264, Vol. 389.]
I have tried hard to discover what point of principle is involved, and why if something more reasonable is suggested it should be looked upon as begging the issue. As we heard upon a previous Amendment, it is to-day extremely difficult to get more than three per cent. or 3 ½ per cent. on money that is invested. If, as we assume, the Government desire to encourage people to save, it seems only right and proper that the amount taken into account as accruing from investments should be more in accordance with facts than a figure of 5 ¼ per cent. This is, in my view, a very reasonable Amendment. A figure of 4d. a week works out at nearly 3½ per cent. By accepting that, the Government would be acting more in accord with the facts. It may be, said that the difference between 4d. and 6d. is not much. It may not be much to most Members of this House, but on the amount involved it approximates to 2S. 6d. a week, which represents a considerable difference in money to an old age pensioner's budget. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will see his way to accept the Amendment, which is a reasonable one, which brings the rate of interest into accord with what is going on at present, and which will, I think, end a controversy that has persisted in this House for many years.

Mr. Tinker: I want to support the Amendment which has been moved by my hon. Friend, and also the other Amendment which we are discussing, in


the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Dumbarton Burghs (Mr. Kirkwood). When the figure of Is. per week on the second and subsequent amounts of £25 was brought in, everybody recognised that it was much more than would be got by investment. I think the idea was that the applicant for a supplementary pension should spend some of his savings. I have never been able to work out the figure, but I am told that it came to about
II per cent. That was out of all proportion to what could be got by investing money. At that time interest rates were better than they are now, because the trend has been to reduce the value of investments. I have always argued that the Government borrow at a less rate than ever they did before. We have now got interest rates for Government stock down to three and 2 ½ per cent. We should bring this figure into some sort of accord with that rate. The Government themselves brought the figure down by a half because they realised that it was too high. My hon. Friend now says that we should cut it by another third, so that it will be about 3 ½ per cent. My hon. Friend the Member for Dumbarton Burghs says also that the capital figure should be £50, instead of £25, so that we may allow better conditions for people who have a little money saved. The Government ought not to object to this. It is well known how we on this side feel on these matters—I would do away with all consideration of capital assets and bring in a flat rate pension, but I have been defeated on that. Government supporters all say they want thrift instilled into people, but they are going the wrong way about it if they reject these two Amendments. I shall support both Amendments, as being fair and reasonable.

Mr. Storey: I believe that the hon. Member for Colne Valley (Mr. Glenvil Hall) was recently a candidate for the treasurership of the Labour Party. I do not know the fate of his candidature, but I do know that if in that office he followed the same policy as he is proposing under this Amendment it would enable his party to live at the expense of the taxpayer and to maintain their capital for their political heirs. Who their political heirs will be, the Common Wealth Party or the Communist Party, I leave to others to decide.

Mr. Glenvil Hall: I do not know whether this is relevant, but it is quite obvious that my hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland (Mr. Storey) knows as little about economics as he does about what is going on with regard to the Labour Party treasurership.

The Deputy-Chairman: I think the hon. Member was giving an illustration, and I accepted it as a short illustration. I hope it will not lead to any others.

Mr. Storey: If my hon. Friend had not interrupted me, I was going to show that his proposal would mean that no savings would be taken into account at all. To be exact, to take the worst possible instance, a man with £375 of savings would under the Amendment have a notional income of 4s. 8d. a week. His actual income at three per cent. or, as the hon. Member admitted, possibly 3 ½ per cent., would be about 5s. Therefore, he would have to use up only 4d. a week of his capital for his own maintenance. When he had used that, his capital income would be equal to his notional income. Therefore, under these proposals he would not have to use up any of his capital, but would call upon the taxpayer
to supplement his pension. In the last Debate I sought to show that this Bill was generous in its proposals to deal with savings, and that under it savings were almost inexhaustible. Indeed, I understated the facts. I suggested that a man with £100 would have to use up his savings at the rate of only 9d. a week. The right figure is only 4d. a week, and after he had used that his notional income would drop and he would not have to draw on his savings at all. Under the Bill, assuming an interest rate of 3 per cent., the worst that could happen to a man with up to £400 is that he would have to use 2s. 8d. a week of his savings for his own maintenance. I submit that a man who has been able to save, who has been thrifty, should be encouraged to be thrifty but that there is no reason why, because he has been thrifty, he should not use up part of his savings, just as a man who has put his money into a superannuation scheme has had to. It is reasonable that he should use part of his savings for his maintenance and not come upon the taxpayer, who may have been in a worse position


than he all his life, to contribute to that maintenance. I hope, therefore, that the Committee will reject the Amendment.

Mr. Ness Edwards: We have listened to a statement which is completely divorced from practical experience and which is based, apparently, upon purely theoretical study. The assumption is that the supplementary pension is sufficient in itself to maintain the ordinary standard of life to which the pensioner has been accustomed, and that the supplementary pension is adequate to meet every need of the old age pensioner. That is more than the Assistance Board itself claims. The Board has never claimed to deal with medical needs in a case where there are resources; it has never claimed to meet special needs, higher rent adjustments, winter conditions, or clothing allowances where there are resources. How is the hon. Gentleman able to talk in the glib way he does? Surely it is by ignoring the actual position of these people. Let me give a concrete instance. I had a letter last week from a supplementary pensioner in Wales whose husband recently died and left her some War Savings. She is drawing £3 a month to maintain herself in her own home and to supplement her supplementary pension. Again, the hon. Member ignores the fact that the resources which a person has when the first determination is made remain all the time the alleged capital resources of that person, although it has been diminished, even on his own reckoning, at the rate of 4d. a week. In 12 months' time it may be £100 less, but it will still be treated as the original figure. The hon. Member is wholly astray in his analysis of the position.
In my view the Amendment does not go far enough. Hon. Members who were in the Committee when the Minister replied to the last discussion will remember that he stated that £400 in War Savings was wholly disregarded, but this money is taken into account. The intention apparently is that, when you have disregarded £375 of War Savings, it is reasonable that people who have £400 of invested capital should eat their capital away little by little. Why should a person with £400 in the bank be treated different from a person with £400 in War Savings? If you disregard the one, why

take into account the other? If the hon. Member for Sunderland (Mr. Storey) is agreeable to £375 of War Savings being wholly ignored, why take into account £400 of any other type of savings? Such savings go into the National Exchequer just the same as all the rest. In a person acquires £375 of War Savings, it is wholly ignored, but if he acquires £375 in a house in which he is not living, that money is taken into account. The Amendment is a reasonable attempt to arrive at a compromise and I hope that we shall try in these matters to get equity as between one pensioner and another. In this matter, we are not getting equity and I hope that the Minister will reconsider the position.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health (Miss Horsbrugh): The hon. Gentleman who moved the Amendment put to the Committee clearly that he thought that under this Bill capital up to £400 belonging to an old age pensioner was to be kept entirely by the old age pensioner and that we looked upon it only as producing interest. We have to make the explanation again, as I think it is not fully understood by hon. Members, that it is not the intention of the Clause that the applicant should be wholly relieved from using some part of his capital.

Mr. Gienvil Hall: Supposing the capital is locked up in a house in which the pensioner is not living and he cannot realise on it without loss or perhaps not at all, that means that he will be eating into a supplementary pension because of the idea that he is getting 5 ¼ per cent.

Mr. Logan: Will the hon. Lady also deal with the diminishing quantity year by year?

Miss Horsbrugh: I would like to reply to all hon. Members, and I will do so, if I can. This matter is intricate and has come up in this House over and over again, and if hon. Members will allow me to state the case we can then answer further questions upon it. If I state the case, it will be understood whether we agree or not. The first point is the interest that the pensioner receives from investment. It has been suggested he should be relieved from using any of his capital, but that is not the intention of the Clause at all. I am asked, also, how we work


out the rate at which capital will have to be spent in order to bring actual income derived from it up to the notional income. It, for example, the sum of £200 were invested at 2 ½ per cent., it would take 18 years to reduce it to £150, and after 25 years there would still be £139 of the original £200. I give that example to show that only a small amount of the capital would be taken.

Mr. Glenvil Hall: What would happen if the capital was not liquid capital? The assumption of the argument of the hon. Lady is that it is liquid capital and therefore the proportion can go on.

Mr. Tinker: What basis is the hon. Lady taking in working out the reduction of capital?

Miss Horsbrugh: In most of the cases the capital is liquid capital, but it is no use simply giving examples and then putting up others of a different type. I will try to deal with them all but I must deal with them in turn. If the pensioner is living in the house, the capital value of the house is not taken into account at all. There is the case of the pensioner with capital invested, and that is the most common case. I have given the case where £200 was invested, giving the interest at only 2 ½ per cent., and I have shown that in 18 years it would be reduced to £150, and after 25 years, to £139. It is clear that taking this sum does not mean taking more than a very small part of the capital. It is laid down clearly, as I have said, that it is not intended wholly to relieve a pensioner from the necessity of using any of his capital. That is the principle upon which we stand. The old age pensioner has saved a certain amount of capital and comes to the time of life when he retires, and the principle we are discussing is whether or not the old man is to keep all his capital intact and be able to leave it to relations who come after him.

Mr. Logan: Let him have a good time while he is living.

Miss Horsbrugh: We want him to have a good time while he is living. I had a case brought to my attention recently of a pensioner who was over 80 years of age. His son said that his father had about £900 and had been refused a supplementary pension, and he thought that he ought to get one. But my answer to

that case, and to any hon. Member, is that either the son should give his father a small sum during his remaining years and so get the £900 intact when his father dies, or suggest to the father that he should use a small amount of that £900, and then the son would get rather less. I am certain the Committee will agree that, if. an old age pensioner has capital, it is right that we should expect him to use a small amount of that capital. The case I have given of the £200 makes it clear that the Clause takes away a small amount —nothing like all of the capital.
Let me deal next with the rate of interest of the notional income. Hon. Members have worked it out. The hon. Member who moved the Amendment and my hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland (Mr. Storey) have worked out percentages. In working out these percentages people sometimes do not take into their calculation the first part of the capital, which is free. If you take anything less than £50 it is treated as yielding no income at all. If you take the income of estates from £50 to £400, it
varies between 15s. per cent. and £4 18s. per cent. Up to the first £50 is free but when you consider the larger amounts the interest naturally increases. I do not think that the hon. Member opposite will deny that.

Mr. Tinker: I will put the hon. Lady right.

Miss Horsbrugh: If the hon. Member works it out he will find that I am correct. Let me repeat—the principle is that a small portion of the capital should be used. We do not say that the pensioners should be able to keep the whole of their capital. A small portion is to be used and we think that that is right. I have explained how the portion works out and shown that the percentage rate of interest assumed is not as high as is stated. Under this Bill the figure is raised from £300 to £400 and the notional income taken into account is reduced from is. to 6d. for each complete £25 after the first. Hon. Members might have said that this is a goad step—fifty-fifty—but one can see clearly that certain hon. Members might say that, if you give up to £400, why not £500 or £1,000. We come back to the principle on which we stand, and that is, that where there is capital, some portion of it must be used and the rest can be used as the old person


wishes, either for himself or herself during lifetime or left to relatives.

Mr. Gallacher: I had not intended to intervene but it is impossible to let such a mendacious statement pass. The Minister says that it is a principle that part of the capital must be used up before the old people get a pension. This is no principle but a deliberate discrimination against the working class of this country. We discussed on a Question the other day the case of a civil servant retiring on a pension of £2,450. I ask the Minister or anyone else: Have such people to use up pare of their capital before they get their pensions, or is the pension in any way related to the using up of part of the capital? Is it not public money which is being handed out to the big pensioners as well as to the working-class? How dare the Government say that this principle applies to one section of the community and not to the other? I am not a mathematician but 6d. for each £25 after the first, is, in respect of the first £100, is. 6d. a week; the second f too adds 2s.; the third £100 adds another 2s. and the fourth £100 adds a further 2s. If a man has £400 he gets 10s. a week pension and is credited with 7s. 6d. income from his £400, that means that he is credited with only 17s. 6d. of an income. Yet the £400 rules him out of supplementary benefit. Is that right?

Hon. Members: Yes.

The Deputy-Chairman: The hon. Gentleman has asked if that is correct. He can ask the Minister but I hope he will not start a discussion between Members on both sides.

Mr. Gallacher: I would like the Minister to explain how 6d. on £25 works out. The argument has been put forward that the savings of an old age pensioner must be gradually used up but the fact that the Minister has come forward with 6d. instead of 1s. is an indication that that is an untenable position. I support the Amendment.

Mr. Tinker: There is a misunderstanding between the Parliamentary Secretary and myself on the question of the first £50 The first £25 is clear but the next complete £25 comes into calculation. If anyone has a complete £100 it means three sixpences. I admire the candour of

the Parliamentary Secretary in telling us that,. in the Government's view, savings must be used. She has been straightforward and it is just as well that the country should know the mind of the Government on this matter.

Mr. George Griffiths: The Parliamentary Secretary has been definite with us. Twelve months ago the Chancellor of the Exchequer, in the Budget Debate, stated that the Government expected old age pensioners to spend a portion of their capital. That was the reason why there was a 1s. for each £ 25 after the first £ 25. In North Wales recently I met my uncle, who is 85 years of age and has worked in the pits for 64 years. He told me that he was getting no supplementary pension and when I asked him why, he said the young lady had inquired how much money he had and that he had refused to tell her. I told him that if he did not tell her, he would not get anything. It took me over half an hour to explain the position to him and I am not quite sure even now whether I succeeded in putting it across. Suppose you have two men working side by side in the same pit. One invests his money in the Co-operative Society and the other in Sam Smith's
Brewery at Tadcaster.[An Hon.
MEMBER: "Liquid capital."] Supposing one man saves £400.and the other man saves nothing. When he is sick the man who has not been thrifty gets 15s. from National Health Insurance and has to go to the public. assistance committee as well. Now we are to say to him, "Having spent all your money, you can have a supplementary pension." [An HON. MEMBER: "The prodigal son."] Yes, I know, it is the case of the prodigal son, but what about the elder brother? [Interruption.]

The Deputy-chairman: We have been through liquid capital to the prodigal son. This discussion is about 6d.; let us get back to the 6d.

Mr. Griffiths: The Minister will not let me.

The Deputy-Chairman: Perhaps the Minister might set an example and not interrupt as well as other Members.

Mr. Griffiths: Yes, he knows that this is almost my maiden speech and that I am a little nervous about it. The Parliamen-


tary Secretary has told us that the man who has saved money is to be penalised. The hon. Lady must know scores of men who have said, "I will not save another penny as long as I live because if I do, I have no chance of getting anything over 10s."All eyes are on this Committee to-day and I hope the Press, as well as the OFFICIAL REPORT, will: publish the statement that the Parliamentary Secretary has made. When my uncle has eaten into his £200 the undertaker will be ready to measure him. So I ask the Government to accept the Amendment.

Mr. Molson: I had not intended to intervene in the Debate until I heard the speech of the hon. Member for Hemsworth (Mr. G. Griffiths). There is nothing new about the general principle that when an individual has a certain amount of savings, and before he can come to the taxpayer for supplementation of his old age pension, some contribution has to be made out of the capital which has been saved. The hon. Gentleman spoke as if this were something completely new.

Mr. Griffiths: The hon. Gentleman has misunderstood me. I did not say it was something completely new. I was talking about the statement which has been made by the Parliamentary Secretary.

Mr. Molson: But the hon. Gentleman emphasised the frankness and candour of the Parliamentary Secretary. This is a Bill to amend legislation that exists at the present time. I am prepared to defend in the country the general principle that before the taxpayers are called upon to pay supplementary pensions to those who have savings the latter must be expected to make some contribution.

Mr. Griffiths: Would the hon. Member do that in Doncaster?

Mr. Molson: I did it in Doncaster and in the High Peak also.

Mr. Griffiths: But the hon. Member was turned out.

Mr. Molson: The hon. Gentleman may be turned out on the next occasion.

Mr. Griffiths: That is true.

Mr. Molson: This brings us back to the principle that where contributions have been paid, and where either benefit in the case of unemployment or pensions for old age pensioners are based on the contribu

tory principle—in that case, whatever savings the person concerned may have, he is entitled to receive full payment. I will always be prepared to defend the principle that when it is not a contributory pension and it is necessary for need to be established, some savings must be used. Hon. Members opposite ought to be grateful for the concessions the Government have made to them and should not be criticising a principle which is widely understood and accepted throughout the country.

Mr. Logan: I should have not intervened had it not been for hearing statements about economy and the question of principle. With regard to principle, why should we say to those who are at the close of their lives that their savings should be frittered away in threepences and sixpences a week? We are told that when a person has saved money he must be mulcted to the extent of 4d. or 6d. I admit that the Parliamentary Secretary has been quite honest but we expect honesty from the Front Bench, though unfortunately, we have not had it on some occasions in the past. It has been admitted that at least one Election was won by being dishonest. There would not be any Election won honestly or dishonestly by this statement in regard to the poor. We are told we always have the poor with us—and the rich are always able to manage the affairs of the poor better than they can manage their own. Therefore we get them stepping in and saying, "When you are thrifty we will penalise you and there will be no question of your getting full relief." I admit that it is a very difficult proposition but surely in 1943 it should be possible for the Government to understand that proper provision ought to be made. The income produced by these savings is an unknown quantity. It may fluctuate between 1¾ and 5 per cent. I do not know where you can
get an honest 3½ per cent. in-
vestment to-day. It would be best for the ordinary man and woman to deal with the Post Office where they would get 2 ½ per cent. There may be a little clothing wanted, but that is not taken into account. With the exhorbitant price of clothing and furniture and essentials for the home, £400 savings would soon be frittered away.

The Deputy-Chairman: To go into the whole question of the price of goods is


going rather far away from the Amendment. These Amendments are on a narrow point.

Mr. Logan: I do not understand how one can argue about investment accounts and money lying in the bank without taking into consideration that so much per week of the money must be spent on subsistence, or why. I cannot bring in the cost of living compared with what it was a few years ago. I must obey your Ruling, Mr. Williams, but the ordinary pensioner, living as the Government wishes him to live, must take so much each year from the capital account, so that it is a diminishing quantity. Not a word has been said in regard to the relative value of the diminishing quantity. Can any hon. Member say that he lives exactly according to the law of averages, on so much week by week for 52 weeks in the year without making any emergency call on his capital? I have dealt with all classes of people in all walks of society. I have had to hand out money over the counter and deal with the problems of the people. In the locality in which I have lived all my life I can assess the growing wants and demands of the people. The argument that has been used is all bunkum from the point of view of making provision. We are not dealing with this question as we ought to. The improvident can have the full extent of the grant that the Government can give, while the provident must be penalised. In other words, you can spend as much as you like and, having spent it, the Government will meet the highest demand that it is possible to make under the Act. Whereas if you are provident, you get less, and the amount can be reduced week by week. Our thrifty population will not stand for this policy. It is ridiculous to talk of the poor having £1,000. No one in my area has 1,000, or £400.

Division No. 23.
AYES



Adamson, W. M. (Cannock)
Benson, G.
Campbell, J. D. (Antrim)


Agnew, Comdr. P. G.
Bevin, Rt. Hon. E.
Cary, R. A.


Albery, Sir Irving
Blair, Sir R.
Castlereagh, Viscount


Ammon, C. G.
Boles, Lt.-Col D. C.
Channon, H.


Apsley, Lady
Boulton, W. W.
Chapman, Sir S. (Edinburgh, S.)


Assheton, R.
Bower, Norman (Harrow)
Charleton, H. C.


Astor, Viscountess (Plymouth, Sutton).
Boyce, H. Leslie
Clynes Rt. Hon. J. R.


Baillie, Major Sir A. W. M.
Braithwaite, Major A. N. (Buckrose)
Cobb, Captain E. C.


Barstow, P. G.
Broad, F. A.
Colegate, W. A.


Beamish, Rear-Admiral T. P.
Brocklebank, Sir C. E. R.
Colman, N. C. D.


Beattie, F. (Cathcart)
Brooke, H. (Lewisham)
Conant, Major R. J. E.


Beaumont, Maj. Hn. R. E. B. (P'ts'h)
Brown, Brig.-Gen. H. C. (Newbury)
Cooke, J. D. (Hammersmith, S)


Beechman, N. A.
Burden, T. W.
Courthope, Col. Rt. Hen. Sir G. L


Beit, Sir A. L.
Butcher, H. W.
Craven-Ellis, W.


Bennett, Sir P. F. B. (Edgbaston)
Campbell, Sir E. T. (Bromley)
Crooke, Sir J. Smedley

The Deputy-Chairman: We have decided the £1,000 matter already. The hon. Member is going very wide. I would ask him to realise that this is a narrow point.

Mr. Logan: I will meet you, Mr. Williams, by going a little less than 50 per cent. of the £1,000.

The Deputy-Chairman: That has been dealt with. It is sixpence and not £500 with which we are dealing now.

Mr. Logan: It is the question of sixpence and fourpence that we are dealing with, is it not? If I am to be told that I do not know what I am talking about, I think I am justified in leaving the matter alone. If the Chairman has to consult with the Clerk to know whether I am in Order, I have said enough.

The Deputy-Chairman: Remarks of that sort should not be made. If I may explain, I did not catch the word "four-pence" used by the hon. Member. I am sorry from that point of view, but I am sure the hon. Member would wish, as he always does, to keep within the Rules.

Mr. Logan: I am sorry if I said anything to offend you, Mr. Williams, and I withdraw it.

Mr. Glenvil Hall: I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Hon. Members: No.

Question put, "That the word "sixpence" stand part of the Clause."

The Committee proceeded to a Division.

Mr. Hogg: (seated and covered): On a point of Order. Cannot a Division be taken by Members rising in their places?

The Deputy-Chairman: That is a matter for the Chair.
The Committee divided: Ayes, 204: Noes, 6.

Crowder, Capt. J. F. E.
Jenkins, A. (Pontypool)
Richards, G. W.


Culverwell, C. T.
Jennings, R.
Roberts, W.


Davidson, Viscountess (H'm'l H'mst'd)
John, W.
Robertson, D. (Streatham)


Davies, Major Sir G. F'. (Yeovil)
Jones, L. (Swansea, W.)
Ross Taylor, W.


Davison, Sir W. H.
Joynson-Hicks, Lt.-Comdr. Hn. L. W
Royds Admiral Sir P. M. R.


De Chair, Capt. S. S.
Kerr, H. W. (Oldham)
Russell, Sir A. (Tynemouth)


Denman, Hon. R. D.
Kerr, Sir John Graham (Scottish U's.)
Sanderson, Sir F. B.


Denville, Alfred
Key, C. W.
Scott, Donald (Wansbeck)


Dodd, J. S.
Kimball, Major L.
Selley, H. R.


Douglas, F. C. R.
King-Hall, Commander W. S. R.
Shakespeare, Sir G. H. Shepperson, Sir E. W.


Duckworth, W. R. (Moss Side)
Lakin, C. H. A.
Silkin, L.


Edo, J. C.
Lees-Jones, J.
Smith, Bracewell (Dulwich)


Eden, Rt. Hon. A.
Leighton, Major B. E. P.
Smith, E. P. (Ashford)


Edmondson, Major Sir J.
Lewis, O.
Smith, Sir R. W. (Aberdeen)


Emmott, C. E. G. C.
Liddall, W. S.
Southby, Comdr. Sir A. R. J.


Erskine-Hill, A. G.
Linstead, H. N.
Spearman, A. C. M.


Etherton, Ralph
Lipson, D. L.
Storey, S.


Evans, D. O. (Cardigan)
Lloyd, Major E. G. R.(Renfrew, E.)
Strauss, G. R. (Lambeth, N.)


Everard, Sir W. Lindsay
Lucas, Major Sir J. M.
Stuart, Lord C. Crichton- (Northwich)


Fox, Flight-Lieut. Sir G. W. G.
Mebane, W.
Stuart, Rt. Hon. J. (Moray and Nairn)


Frankel, D.
MacAndrew, Colonel Sir C. G.
Summers, G. S.


Fremantle, Sir F. E.
McCorquodale, Malcolm S.
Sutcliffe, H.


Galbraith, Comdr. T. D.
Macdonald, Captain Peter (I. of W.)
Sykes, Maj.-Gen. Rt. Hon. Sir F. H.


Gammans, Capt. L. D.
McEntee, V. La T.
Thomas, J. P. L. (Hereford)


Gates, Major E. E.
Makins, Brig.-Gen. Sir E.
Thomas, Dr. W. S. Russell (S'thm'tn)


Gibson, Sir C. G.
Manningham-Butler, R. E.
Thorneycroft, Major G. E. P. (Stafford)


Gledhill, G
Markham, Major S. F.
Tomlinson, G.


Glyn, Sir R. G. C.
Marlowe, Lt.-Col. A.
Touche, G. C.


Graham, Captain A. C.
Marshall, F.
Tree, A. R. L. F.


Greenwell, Colonel T. G.
Medricott, Colonel Frank
Tufnell, Lieut.-Comdr. R. L.


Greenwood, Rt. Hon. A.
Mellor, Sir J. S. P.
Wakefield, W. W.


Gridley, Sir A. B.
Mills, Colonel J. D. (New Forest)
Ward, Cot. Sir A. L. (Hull)


Griffiths, J. (Llanelly)
Molson, A. H. E.
Watkins, F. C.


Grimston, R. V.
Montague, F.
Watt, F. C. (Edinburgh Cen.)


Guy, W. H.
Morgan, R. H. (Stourbridge)
Webbe, Sir W. Harold


Hambro, Capt. A. V.
Morris-Jones, Sir Henry
Wedderburn, H. J. S.


Hannah, I. C.
Mort, D. L.
Westwood, Rt. Hon. J.


Hannon, Sir P. J. H.
Naylor, T. E.
Whiteley, Rt. Hon. W. (Blaydon)


Harvey, T. E.
Nicholson, G. (Farnham)
Wickham, Lt.-Col. E. T. R.


Hayday, A.
Nicolson, Hon. H. G. (Leicester, W.)
Williams, Sir H. G. (Croydon, S.)


Henderson, J. (Ardwick)
Nield, Major B. E.
Williams, Rt. Hon. T. (Don Valley)


Henderson, J. J. Craik (Leeds, N.E.)
Owen, Major G.
Witlink, H. U.


Higgs, W. F.
Palmer, G. E. H.



Hill, Prof. A. V.
Perkins, W. R. D.
Windsor, W.


Hinchingbrooke, Viscount
Petherick, Major M.
Womersley, Rt. Hon. Sir W.


Hegg, Hon.Q.MCG.
Pethick-Lawrence, Rt. Hon. F. W.
Woodburn, A.


Holdsworth, H.
Pets, Major B. A. J.
Wootton-Davios, J. H.


Holmes, J. S.
Piokthorn, K. W. M.
Wright, Mrs. Beatrice F. (Bodmin)


Horsbrugh, Florence
Plugge, Capt. L. F.
York, Major C.


Howitt, Dr. A. B.
Pownall, Lt.-Col, Sir Assheton
Young, A. S. L. (Partick)


Hughes, R. Moelwyn
Price, M. P.



Hume, Sir G. H.
Reed, A. C. (Exeter)
TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—


Hurd, Sir P. A.
Reed, Sir H. S. (Aylesbury)
Captain McEwen and Mr. Pym.


Jeffreys, Gen. Sir G. D
Reid, Rt. Hon. J. S. C. (Hillhead)





NOES


Buchanan, G.
Maxton, J.
TELLERS FOR THE NOES.


Chater, D.
Reakes, G. L. (Wallasey)
Mr. McGovern and Mr. Stephen.


Cluse, W. S.
Salter, Dr. A. (Bermondsey, W.)

Mr. Ness Edwards: I beg to move, in page 2, line 6, after "needs," to insert:
including need of a winter addition or rent adjustment.
This Amendment deals with that portion of Clause which proposes to disregard the first 10s. 6d. of superannuation payment and its intention is that this disregard shall apply to all the needs of the applicant. The matter is rather technical. Under Section 38 of the Assistance Act, 1934, it has been laid down that the needs of an applicant shall be assessed in a certain way but that in assessing that need certain items shall be disregarded. These items are known as statutory disregards.
The Assistance Board's practice has been to look on those statutory disregards as applying only to the assessment of need in the way of the scale, but in the field of discretion, which relates to winter allowances and high rent adjustments, it is the contention and practice of the Board to take into account that which by Statute has to be disregarded. When the Minister of Labour and the Minister of Health in the Second Reading Debate made the announcement about this increase of the superannuation disregard from 7s. 6d. to 10s. 6d. they made no qualification at all. All they intended in their statement was that for the purpose of


assessing the needs of an applicant for supplementary pensions the net disregard would be 10s. 6d. We are concerned that the intentions of the House of Commons shall not be overridden by the Assistance Board and we want to make it clear in the Clause that this disregard applies to all the needs of the applicant. The need of the applicant for a scale allowance is, in principle, no greater than his need for a winter addition or a high rent adjustment. We say that it ought not to be within the powers of the Assistance Board in this field of discretion to take into account those sums which Parliament has said should be disregarded. I ask the Minister to give us an assurance that the increase in this disregard shall be effective for all purposes under the administration. If we can have that undertaking I am prepared to withdraw the Amendment. We ought to have it clearly from the Government that there is no intention to deceive the recipient of a pension that the amount will be disregarded when in fact that very amount is taken into account to prevent him getting a winter addition or a high rent adjustment.

Mr. Foster: The hon. Member for Caerphilly (Mr. Edwards) has so well explained the purpose of the Amendment that I do not propose, to take up the time of the Committee in supporting it. He is an expert in these matters and the Minister will fully understand the point from his speech.

Mr. E. Brown: My hon. Friends have raised a point which has been an issue throughout all stages of the various Acts, namely, that there is a distinction between the allowances. The hon. Member put it clearly when he said that there were certain disregards which were statutory and others which were not. Those Members who were in the House of Commons in the days when the first winter allowances were given will know that from the beginning they were given, as were rent allowances, on the basis that they were to be determined in terms of the facts, not by statute but by the discretion of the Board. Throughout the whole of the administration of the successive Acts, Parliament has stood by that distinction between what it laid down in the Statute and what it laid down as being in the discretion of the Assistance Board. The Committee will see that if, at any time,

Parliament determines otherwise, as it would be free to do, it would have to do it by surveying the whole field. It would be unwise to alter that fundamental distinction between the Statute on the one hand and the discretion on the other, with regard to one particular thing, while leaving others under the old law and under the discretion of the Board. The question whether a high rent addition or a winter allowance will be given in a particular case is a question which Parliament by Regulation has left to the discretion of the Assistance Board, and I cannot think that the Committee would want to deal with this one element in the whole field because it is a point that must be decided over the wider field.

Mr. Messer: The Minister surely recognises that by refusing to make this Amendment he is creating additional difficulties. The recipient who is entitled to have part of his superannuation disregarded is, when some special need arises, placed in a different position from the ordinary applicant. The ordinary applicant can get a clothing allowance or a coal allowance or a special winter grant. He can get special recognition of special needs. In this case we are giving discretion. Those of us who handle comparable public assistance cases know that in some instances public assistance committees are more generous than the Assistance Board, and we want that to be made known. Will the Minister give us some indication of how he can ensure that the benefit which he desires to give shall reach those to whom we are making some concession, by disregarding part of their superannuation?

Amendment negatived.

Mr. Tom Brown: I beg to move, in page 3, line 2, at the end, to add:
Provided that the further determination may include such sum as is calculated to meet any accumulated need.

I move this formally.

Mr. E. Brown: Since the hon. Member has graciously met the desire of the Committee to get on, perhaps I may put the position as I see it in the light of the Amendment. As I said on Second Reading we inserted Sub-section (4) in order to allow the Assistance Board a little more latitude in making the arrangement than was the case under the original Bill. It was then


two months, and I warned the House that it might be three months in this case. I think the Committee will agree that the Amendment is not necessary, for this reason: Supplementary pension is granted at a rate adequate to meet current needs, and there cannot therefore be any question of hardship arising from a short postponement of the provisions.of the Clause, which are of advantage to the applicant. When the provisions of the Determination of Needs Act were brought into operation a period of two months was given, and there was no provision for ante-dating then. Not having heard the hon. Member speak about it, I do not know how strongly he feels on the matter, but if after the Committee stage he or his friends would meet me so that I could ascertain what their feelings are, I would see whether anything can be done by administrative arrangement after consultation with the Assistance Board.

Mr. Ness Edwards: I think the Minister might be a little more generous. The Amendment provides only for increasing the discretion of his officers to meet any accumulated need. We merely say that where an applicant has had to wait three months for the rectification of what Parliament has now considered to be an injustice he shall be given such a payment as will meet the consequences of that injustice. The Minister speaks of it as conferring an advantage. Very well; but let us have equity among pensioners. If it is an advantage, let all, as far as possible, have an equal measure of that advantage. Why should one pensioner have to wait three months longer than another? I know there is a technical administrative reason, but there is no administrative reason for refusing to give the assistance officer discretionary power to meet an accumulated need. I press the Minister to give us something a little better than he has offered.

Mr. E. Brown: I can only say that in view of the fact that no case was made out, I had rather to forecast what was in the hearts of my hon. Friends, and I think they really must leave it to me.

Mr. T. Brown: I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Clause stand part of the Bill."

Mr. Tinker: One of the Amendments on this Clause dealt with capital assets. I am told the reason why some capital assets were excluded is to be found in representations from the Trades Union Congress. That refers to war savings. Has not the time now come when those who saved money before the war should be put on the same footing as those who are saving money now? It is a well-worn theme, but I think consideration ought to be given to that point of view and all the aged people put on the one footing.

Mr. E. Brown: While certain things have been done to-day it has been also recognised that the whole vast and complicated range of our social services is now under expert examination with a view to the future, and in doing the limited thing I have done I really cannot undertake to cover every anomaly that may be pointed out or every difficulty that will arise merely because it happens to be related to the particular thing we have done, which everybody agrees is an improvement.

Mr. S. 0. Davies: Is not the Minister fully aware that from the moment this subject was introduced, about three years ago, the point raised by the hon. Member for Leigh (Mr. Tinker) has been stressed over and over again? Constant appeals have been made to him about it. As things stand those who had reached the pensionable age before the war and who had some little savings are deprived entirely of this benefit. I had hoped this anomaly could be corrected Without creating another bunch of anomalies such as this Bill creates in every Clause. I would reinforce the appeal which has been made, and which has been made on every occasion when Parliament has had an opportunity of discussing the matter.

Question, "That the Clause stand part of the Bill," put, and agreed to.

CLAUSE 2.— (Determination of resources and needs of members of household (poor law and blind persons).)

Silkin: I beg to move, in page 3, line 26, at the end, to insert:
(iii) the rules contained in paragraph 2 and in sub-paragraph (a) of paragraph 3 of the said Schedule shall not apply in any case of financial assistance under the Blind Persons Acts, 1920 and 1938, unless the appropriate authority so determine.
With permission, I am moving to insert this Amendment at line 26 instead


of at line 16, as the Amendment stands on the Order Paper, and so to make it a third proviso. The words remain the same. The purpose of the Amendment is to enable local authorities who are granting financial assistance to blind persons in a household regardless of the means of the household to continue to do so without having regard to the means of the household. Under the Bill as it stands local authorities will be compelled to have regard to household means in the case of blind persons. Some local authorities are treating blind persons better than that by disregarding the household means, except the means of the wife or husband of the blind person. If the Bill went through as it stands, blind persons would be worse off.

E. Brown: It has been the practice of authorities to use discretion in this matter, and from inquiries which I have made I have found that in the case of one or two authorities blind persons might be worse off than they are now if the Clause were passed without this Amendment. I am sure that no Member would wish that to happen. I have consulted with my hon. Friend the Member for Peckham (Mr. Silkin) on how best to fit this proviso into the Bill, and I am prepared to accept his Amendment.

Evelyn Walkden: I am certain that the hon. Member for Peckham (Mr. Silkin) and other Members will be grateful to the right hon. Gentleman, but I would appeal to the Minister to review the practices of local authorities who do not seem inclined to act in the spirit indicated by the Minister. In dealing with blind persons they not merely take into account the means of the household but also bring into assessment all sorts of other things. Not all local authorities are so generous as he has suggested. In one case in my Division a blind man received 10s. blind pension and 2IS. domiciliary grant from the local authority. He lost a son in the Royal Air Force, and the Minister of Pensions granted him 5s. a week on that account. The Minister of Pensions said, in effect, "You need 36s. a week," and so he granted 5s., bringing the man's income up to 36s. a week. Then the local authority reviewed what had happened and decided that the man was getting

5s. more than he ought to have according to their scale, and they deducted 5s. from the 21S.
A fortnight ago, when I raised the matter, my right hon. Friend said the statements I had made were correct, but when I asked what he could do about it he said: "I cannot do anything; I cannot interfere." We hope that he will interfere in such cases, because when further representations were made in this case this local authority said: "If the Minister of Pensions gives another 5s. we shall take that off as well; and if he gives a further 5s., making 15s. in all, we shall fake that off."In the case of the loss of a son the Ministry of Pensions can, I think, give up to 16s. 6d. a week, and in such a case this local authority would deduct the 16s. 6d. from the domiciliary grant, and the man would still be left with the 31s. In a word the local authority is playing a game of put-and-take. Will my right hon. Friend, who has displayed generosity, go a step further and make it clear to such a local authority that he will stand no nonsense from them, tell them that when the Minister of Pensions has augmented the domiciliary grant to a blind person the final figure is to remain, so that if the Minister of Pensions thinks the income ought to be 36s. it shall remain at 36s.?

Sir Adam Maitland: I am sure that the Minister's acceptance of the Amendment will give great satisfaction to local authorities and will go a long way to mitigate some of the hard cases to which attention has been called. I thank the Minister.

Mr. E. Brown: My answer to the case put by the hon. Member for Doncaster (Mr. E. Walkden) is that he will know that it is an exceptional case. There may be one or two other cases. I have looked at the matter. If the hon. Member looks at the terms of the Amendment which I am accepting, and considers my expression of feeling made from the Government Bench, he may, be of opinion that that will do what the Committee desires.

Mr. E. Walkden: Will that give the blind man his five bob back?

Mr. Brown: I think so.

Mr. Messer: There should be some kind of uniformity among local authorities in the method of arriving at the amount of


the domiciliary grant. The Minister is to be congratulated upon accepting the Amendment, but I would point out that the domiciliary grant is usually arrived at by a local authority purely in accordance with its own arbitrary decision. In effect, the local authority says, "We will make up the blind person's allowance to a given amount." Take only one geographical area, Lincolnshire. It has three administrative county councils and one county borough council, each having a blind persons scheme. Would the Minister have regard to the fact that what he is doing in the Bill is to say that pensions will have no regard to what the domiciliary grant may be, while there is no guarantee that when a scheme is made by a domiciliary assistance authority the authority shall not have regard to the pension?

Mr. McEntee: I would ask the Minister to go a step further than he has done to ensure that local authorities become aware of what has happened.. Not all local authorities will become aware of it unless the matter is brought directly to their notice. From time to time the Ministry of Health issue explanatory circulars to local authorities. I have seen thousands of them myself and have tried to understand them. I suggest that an understandable circular might be issued to local authorities drawing their attention to the Debate which has taken place here to-day and to the Amendment which the Minister, I am very glad to know, has accepted, and also to the expressions that he has used in the Committee in regard to the practice of local authorities in the future. I suggest that he might say that it is the desire of the Ministry of Health that if the Ministry of Pensions grant another 5s., it shall not be taken away by the local authority. To put that in the circular would have a very good effect, would do no harm to the Department and would not in any way alter the law.

Amendment agreed to.

Mr. Silkin: I beg to move, in. page 3, line 27, to leave out Sub-section (2) and to insert:
(2) No order of maintenance shall be made under Sub-section (2) of Section nineteen of the Poor Law Act, 1930, upon the relations of a poor person to whom outdoor relief has been granted, and accordingly the provision of that Sub-section shall cease to have effect in respect of outdoor relief.

The more generous and expansive mood of the Minister encourages me to hope that the words I am putting forward will be equally acceptable to him with those of the last Amendment. The purpose of the Amendment is to achieve something which I am sure he will desire, and that is to avoid embarrassment to local authorities in the administration of the Poor Law. The purpose of Clause 2 of the Bill is that in dealing with outdoor relief local authorities should apply the same test of relating household means as is at present applicable to persons receiving supplementary pensions. Therefore when local authorities in future consider an application for outdoor relief they will take into account the means of persons who are members of the household, whether the applicant is a householder or is a member of the household. Certain incomes will be exempt from being taken into account. Where the income of a member of a household is under £6 a week he will not be deemed to be making any contribution to the maintenance of the applicant if he is the householder.
Section 19 of the Poor Law Act will still require the local authorities to claim a contribution from a member of a family who is not a member of a household. So you will have the anomalous position that where an applicant has two sons with equal earnings, say of £3 or £4 per week, one being a member of the household and single and the other not a member of the household and married, the single person will not be required to make any contribution towards his father's maintenance, while the married man living outside the home will be required to do so. That is grossly unfair to the married man, and at the same time it is extremely embarrassing to local authorities who have to apply that anomalous procedure. I recognise that Section 19 is not mandatory, but, on the assumption that every local authority is required to do the best it can for its ratepayers, there is a real danger that where a local authority decides not to make any claim on the relative living outside the home, the auditor may come down on the local authority and surcharge them or require them to claim that contribution.
The Amendment is put down in order that the local authority shall not be required to claim contribution from a member of a family, whether that member is


living in or outside the home. It is an eminently reasonable Amendment, and the words of it indicate the purpose which I have in mind. I shall not attempt to argue the wording, for if the Minister should find that the words do not meet the case, I should be quite happy to agree to any other form of wording that he might propose in their place. I do beg him to accept the principle that you ought not to claim a contribution from a relative living outside the home when the person living inside the home is exempted by the Bill. If the Minister insists on the Bill going through without the Amendment, he will be inflicting great hardship, creating an anomaly and embarrassing local authorities. I hope he will see his way to accept the Amendment.

Mr. G. Griffiths: I support the Amendment. I had correspondence the other day from one of the county councils in the British Isles with no mean influence in legislation, especially on this matter. This authority asks for exactly the same Amendment as is now proposed. The Minister stated, when I made a similar suggestion some time ago, "This is such a difficult thing. If we make this alteration for the sons outside the family as well as the sons inside the family, it will take a tremendous amount of legislation." That was a very poor excuse. It is not a matter of legislation, but of justice to the members of a family. The present position is unjust. Under the present law sons can claim for the grandfather, never mind the father. There are sons who have helped to maintain the home until they were 25, and when they got married, it the old people fell ill and on evil days and had to apply for public assistance, the whole amount could be recovered from those sons, now bringing up their own families. When an hon. Member on this side of this House was rather perturbed recently about girls getting married at 16, saying that it was a bit early, there was such a howl from the other side. Hon. Members there said it was not too early because we wanted more population. Yet sons leaving the home and beginning to populate the British Isles are penalised when their parents apply for poor relief. I know that the way that I am putting it may seem a bit crude, but it is the truth. A son at home can earn £5 19s. 11 ¾d., and he has only to contri

bute 7s. The Minister of Health, who was then Minister of Labour, when we were putting these things through in the House, said, "Seven shillings is not much for a bed and for a mother washing his clothes. etc." ——

Mr. E. Brown: Mr. E. Brown indicated dissent——

Mr. Griffiths: Well, if it was not the right hon. Gentleman, it must have been somebody else similar to him. That remark came from the Government Front bench. Possibly it was the other Ernest. I cited a case from the West Riding where three lads who are now earning a bit of money at the coal face were brought to Barnsley in front of the magistrates, and they had a certain amount put upon them, on the application of the West Riding County council. Note that the West Riding County Council are now asking that this provision shall be removed from the law, so that they will not be forced to make such applications for sons to keep parents. I am not sure, but I believe it was the Minister of Health who said, when we were discussing the Bill, that the local authorities were not doing this. We said, "They are doing it. If the local authorities do not do it and the auditor comes along, he will force them to do it. It is not a matter of choice. We are asking that the married son shall be put on the same footing as the son who is at home. Surely we are not asking too much. Up to now we have not had a crumb fall from the rich man's table. [An HON. MEMBER: "Oh yes, just now."] One crumb. Well, let us have another. I am sure that the Minister should look at this from the standpoint of the sons outside the home, and bring them into the same position as the sons inside the home.

Mr. Logan: If this could be removed, it would be very beneficial to the Poor Law in Liverpool.. I think a great injustice has been done in the past, and many anomalies have been created. The hon. Member for Peckham (Mr. Silkin) has introduced this Amendment from the standpoint of his practical view in the light of his administrative experience on the L.C.C., with regard to which he is a well known expert. What applies to London also applies to the provinces. I think it is the duty of a son, if he is in circumstances enabling him to do so, to make provision for a parent. I have not thought yet that sons or daughters with means at their dis-


posal can be relieved of the obligation of doing their duty to home. I feel that is essential, I also know that when a man leaves home, and has ceased to have anything to do with that home, and has started a home of his own, he has his responsibilities. It seems to me an anomaly that a man may be getting good wages and living at home because he gets the best of everything in the house, and is treated by his mother just as a favourite son—if he went elsewhere he would have to pay more—and is able to live practically on the mother and get the benefit of his wage, and this son is supposed to be a contributing factor to the home; therefore no charge is made on him with regard to the maintenance of his mother, but in the case of a son outside we do get this charge made. I think that if we could do away with it altogether it would be better.
Some boards of guardians have a certain method of managing their affairs. I suppose that those not bringing in the most money they possibly could would be considered from the point of view of the auditor not to be carrying on their affairs as they should. The Minister must know that a surcharge can be made on the guardians with regard to the question of administration if they are not prepared to put the law into operation to the full extent, even though they themselves may consider, "We will let this matter slide." In those circumstances there can be a surcharge, while the law stands as it is at present. Why not try to get rid of this question and thus remove one more anomaly by doing as the hon. Member for Peckham wishes the Government to do?

Lieut.-Colonel Sir Cuthbert Headlam: I am rather in agreement with the previous speaker. I belong to a generation in which it was conceived to be the natural course of things that a son or daughter in a position to do so should assist the family of his mother and father if they. needed it. If this Bill relieves a son who is living in the house of responsibility in that matter and leaves the responsibility on sons living outside the house, it seems to me that what the hon. Member for Peckham (Mr. Silkin) has said contains a certain amount of reason. I should be grateful to the Minister if he would explain to us why this anomaly should remain. I do not understand the previous speaker,

when, having agreed to the fact that a son who lives in the house should help his parents, he asked for the anomaly to he removed. If the position is as has been said by the hon. Member for Peckham, I think really it is up to the Minister to make us understand what his reasons are.

Mr. E. Brown: I thought I had done that plainly on Second Reading so that the House should be under no illusion. The hon. Member for Peckham (Mr. Silkin) always states his case carefully, but he did not state what the Government are setting out to do here quite accurately. He said in his first sentence that what we were asked to do here was to apply the same test as under the Determination of Needs Act. It is not what we were asked to do. The hon. Member for Bow and Bromley (Mr. Key) will remember that the case put to the Government was that we should apply the rules of the Determination of Needs Act to public assistance. That is what we are doing. Therefore the anomaly does not arise from that fact. The anomaly arises from the present law, and of course the discretion used by local authorities under the law in applying for orders for maintenance. Although there has been talk of the district auditor, I do not gather that the district auditor was paraded as having a very ferocious club in this matter but rather more by way of illustration, or perhaps, it may be, as a debating point.
This is no new thing; it is an old thing. What are we doing here? It is not true, first of all, that the Determination of Needs Act rules completely take from those living in the household all responsibility. The hon. Member for Hemsworth (Mr. G. Griffiths) underlined that in pointing out that if they have more than £5 19s. they are, under the Determination of Needs Act, left with a certain responsibility: What we are doing here is to make what is applicable now under the law in terms of assistance for supplementary pensions equally so with regard to public assistance. But what we are not doing, as I pointed out on Second Reading, is to attempt to amend the Poor Law in other regards, because the thing is not so simple as the hon. Member for Hems worth says, as he must know from his local government experience. Look at the anomalies that are bound to come if alterations are made here in our mixed structure. I can give a very good reason


why I will not accept this Amendment. Indeed, the hon. Member for Peckham, judging by his reference to the wording of it, himself sees that it goes further than the case to which it is directed, as I shall show the Committee it does. It is not only a question of responsibility of the relative for a person living in the home, whether the home has got sons and daughters in it or sons and daughters out of it. It is a question here as to whether we are to alter the law so that the liability for the relative outside shall be lifted. If the question were one of someone living in the how, I should be attacked at once. What about institutions, because the law of maintenance affects institutions too? Therefore it is not so simple as my hon. Friend suggested it is to do this in relation to this Bill.
I assured the House on Second Reading that we have looked at it; we are quite conscious of it. That is why I said so frankly, almost in the first sentence, that in doing what we were asked to do, and we have done what we were asked to do—applied the principle of the Determination of Needs Act to public assistance —there were bound to be anomalies, arising not out of our doing this, but out of our present Poor Law—the Acts and the administration of that Poor Law. Therefore I cannot accept the Amendment. The Amendment goes much further than this. I believe that there are few Members in the Committee who would want to do what I am advised this Amendment would do; it would not only do this thing, this simple thing, but it would abolish the responsibility of a husband and wife to maintain one another and would abolish the obligation of a parent to maintain a child. That is because of the wording:
No order of maintenance shall be made under Sub-section (2) of Section nineteen of the Poor Law Act, 1930 …
which applies not merely in the limited number of cases which my hon. Friend has raised but to the whole field. The Committee will therefore see I cannot accept the Amendment. It is not the case that we are now discussing the whole field of our social services, and this is not the occasion in advance of the big decision, to begin tinkering in small ways with the Poor Law.

Mr. Ness Edwards: The Minister has failed to deal with one phase of his problem, that arising out of the application of the determination of needs calculation to the sons in the household. Under this new provision the contribution of the son in the household will be reduced. Under the Poor Law the contribution to be made by the son living outside the house automatically has" to be increased by the amount of the sum reduced in respect of the son inside the household. We have not got any correction of that position. I agree that it is making the position of the members of the household very much better by applying these rules to those members, but I do not want their position to be improved and the portion of the burden they were carrying to be thrown on sons and daughters who live outside the household. That is the phase of the problem to which the Minister has paid no attention. I do not want to talk about the thing at length, but would ask the Minister what are the views of his Ministry on that particular point.

Mr. Lipson: I have to confess that I cannot see that the Minister has met the point raised by the hon. Member for Peckham (Mr. Silkin). Here it seems, so far as I am concerned, a very simply issue. In this Bill it is proposed to relieve the sons who are members of the household of a certain liability, but the liability still remains upon those outside. I do not think that is at all satisfactory. I do not think the Committee want a position like that to remain. It is no argument to say that that is the law as it stands. Here an Amendment has been proposed. If the Minister cannot accept the particular wording, could he not accept the principle that they should be treated alike? The Committee could understand that those in the household and those outside should be liable, or that neither should be liable, but to say that if one is to be liable it should be the one outside the household, the one with greater responsibilities, seems to be quite unreasonable. I must express the hope that the Minister will say that he is prepared to accept the principle of dealing with the particular difficulty raised by the Amendment. Even if he cannot accept the wording of the Amendment, surely a simple way out can be found.

Mr. Silkin: I agree freely that the words of my Amendment go too far, and I do


not feel justified in pressing this particular Amendment. I think the whole Committee is with me in feeling that this is a serious anomaly and that something ought to be done about it. I do beg the Minister—I do not ask him to accept the Amendment, because it goes beyond the point raised—to pay attention to the anomaly and see what can be done to remove it. I therefore beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment, and I would express the hope that between now and the next stage it will be possible to agree on a form of words which will not force authorities to administer something which they could not possibly justify.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Mr. Ness Edwards: I beg to move, in page 3, line 28, to leave out from "sixteen," to "are," in line 29.
This Amendment seeks to clear up a position which appears to be ambiguous in the draft. The proposal, as I understand it, of this Clause is to apply the principle of the Determination of Needs Act to persons applying for public assistance. That has been the general intention, but in the wording it says this:
the resources or needs of the person to be relieved or the blind person as the case may be, shall, if that person is a member of a household, …
That occurs in line 10, and again in line 29. We have the exclusion of the husband or wife of the poor person. As the Parliamentary Secretary knows, there are three categories of persons under the Determination of Needs Act—the householder, the person who lives otherwise than in a household, and a member of a household. If I can be given the assurance that these three categories are covered, I will withdraw the Amendment.

Miss Horsbrugh: The Amendment would have this effect. Take the case of a husband and wile living in the same house. In order to make it perfectly clear that there is complete equality between the sexes under this Measure, I will put it this way. If a wife was possessed of sufficient money and refused to give any for the maintenance of the husband living in the same house, money would have to be provided by public assistance for the maintenance of the husband. I. put it that way; but if the husband had money, it would be exactly the same position in regard to the wife. It is a question of husband and wife living in the same

house, one having money and refusing to assist the other, and public assistance having to step in. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman, whatever he dislikes about this Bill, does not want that state of affairs.

Mr. Ness Edwards: That is all very well, but the income is deemed to be the income of the two persons, and not of one. No compulsory powers are needed under the Determination of Needs Act. Really, I think the fear of the Parliamentary Secretary is completely unfounded. What I want to know is whether the Determination of Needs Act scales apply to all those categories I have mentioned. The Minister of Labour has said that where a person remains under the Poor Law the Determination of Needs Act is so superior to the family test that it has been applied to poor persons. Does this Clause really give effect to that declaration by the Minister?

Miss Horsbrugh: Yes; so far as we know, it does. If we accepted this Amendment, it would make a completely ridiculous state of affairs.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Clause, as amended, stand part of the Bill."

Mr. Silkin: I hope that we are not leaving this question of the anomaly where it is. I withdrew my Amendment because I wished to be honest with the Committee, and I felt that it was going further than I intended. I accepted the Minister's explanation. But the anomaly remains, and it has to be dealt with. I hope that the Minister will hold out some prospect that it will be dealt with during the remaining stages of the Bill. The Minister has spoken of the difficulty of amending the Poor Law, but this Bill itself amends the Poor Law in a number of respects; this very Clause amends the Poor Law. Therefore, there need be no fear about amending the Poor Law. I shall be very happy to place my services at the Ministry's disposal in endeavouring to draft an Amendment which will meet the case. I hope that he will be able to give some kind of assurance which will be satisfactory.

Mr. Burden: Speaking with some knowledge of public assistance work, may I suggest to the Minister that unless the Amendment to which


my hon. Friend has referred is adopted in a different form, it will simply mean a flood of forms going into the homes of liable relatives, poor people having to fill up these forms, and the collection of relatively trivial amounts from poor people. This is a very substantial hardship for numerous people, and I add my appeal to that of my hon. Friend that the Minister will give us some assurance that the matter will be dealt with at an early stage.

Mr. Ness Edwards: Unless we can get some satisfaction on this point, we shall have to consider dividing the Committee. Persons in the household are being relieved from their contribution. We are told that it is only a payment for their place in the home and not a contribution for their maintenance of the poor person. That was the contention of the Minister. We argued to the contrary, but our point of view was not accepted. The anomaly was created that the relatives living outside the house had still to bear their Poor Law responsibilities. A second anomaly is that if you decrease the contribution made-by the person inside the house, the Poor Law authority automatically has to decrease the amount of maintenance paid to the person living outside the house. This is an important issue. The Government are not entitled to give benefits to some sons of the family by passing the cost of those benefits on to other sons of the family who have other burdens to carry.

Question, "That the Clause, as amended, stand part of the Bill," put, and agreed to.

CLAUSE 3.—(Supplementary pensions (widows with children and date of commencement).)

Mr.E. Brown: I beg to move, in page 3, line 40, to leave out "shall so long as," and to insert "and to whom."
The Committee will remember that on Second Reading I gave notice that we would amend the Bill to meet a point that was raised. A widow receives a widow's pension under the Bill only as long as she has children. It was pointed out, and the Minister of Labour referred to it in winding up the Second Reading Debate, that where a widow was receiving a supplementary pension, at the point where the children ceased to be regarded as children under the Act—that is to say,

when she ceased to receive an allowance for them—she would, if in need of assistance, go back to public assistance. The Government considered that point, and came to the conclusion that the administration should be eased by making it possible for her to retain her pension if in need of supplementation. This Amendment and the next three Amendments make it possible to do that. The effective part. of Sub-section (1), as amended by these Amendments, will read as follows:—
A widow (not being a blind person) who is entitled to receive weekly payments on account of a widow's pension and to whom an additional allowance in respect of a child is payable as part of that pension, shall be eligible for a supplementary pension…
Here is a case where it is a question of one administration or two in the case of a widow in need, and the Government came to the conclusion that the same administration had better carry on if she was still in need. That is the simple meaning, and the reason why the Financial Resolution was amended.

Mr. Storey: I am sorry to find myself in disagreement with the Amendment which my right hon. Friend has just moved. The whole Committee, I think, will agree with the proposal in the Bill that we should supplement the pensions of widows with children, and I think most Members will agree that it is right that that supplementation should continue for a period after the last child is 16. But many will take the view that it is unfair to other widows and uneconomic to make a widow in receipt of supplementation when the last child is 16 eligible for supplementation for the remainder of her widowhood. If this Amendment is passed, we shall find ourselves in the indefensible position that where you have two widows, with similar responsibilities, one of whom is working to maintain herself and her child, when the last child is. 16 she will not be able to claim supplementation until she is 6o, but the other, who has been and is in receipt of supplementation when the last child is 16, will continue to be eligible for supplementation. You will also have the extraordinary position that the widow who has been maintaining herself will, if she likes to stop work a few months before the last child is 16 and take supplementation, be eligible for supplementation during the remainder of her widowhood.


I say nothing about Sir William Beveridge's proposal, which would even tale away the widows' pension, but I think that most Members will agree that until we have adequate contributory pensions some supplementation is desirable for both widows and spinsters who are unable to earn a living. But where a widow or a spinster is able to earn her living she should do so, and not seek supplementation. It is a very difficult question where we should draw the line, but it is a problem which must be solved in any scheme of comprehensive insurance, and not dealt with piecemeal. At present, when the whole of our future policy of these matters is under discussion, I think it is wrong to prejudice the issue by making what I believe to be an ill-considered concession which grants a privilege to one class of widow with no over-riding claims of that concession. By all means let us make provision for widows with children. Let us give them time, when the last child is 16, to reorientate their lives, but do not let us give them a privileged position when their claim is no stronger than that of other widows, and even of spinsters. I appeal to my right hon. Friend to bring in an Amendment, either before the Report stage or in another place, to limit this concession to a period of, say, one year after the child is 16. I believe that that will do all that is necessary and will leave the way open for the full consideration of our future policy without placing upon those whose duty it is to consider this matter the difficulty of having to consider what would be a vested interest of a privileged class who have no greater claim than many others to this special concession.

Mr. R. J. Taylor: I want to support very heartily the Minister in the Amendment he is bringing forward in fulfilment of a promise that was made when we were previously discussing the Bill. I do not want to reduce this matter down to class or class hatred at all, but I do not know how Members opposite who have lived in the lap of luxury all their lives can stand up and have the audacity—because it is nothing short of that—to make such suggestions as the hon. Member for Sunderland (Mr. Storey) has made about working-class wives and urge the Minister to take back the Amendment that he has moved with the object

of removing what we consider on this side of the Committee to be a very great hardship indeed. What is the position? I am not going to presume for a moment that I am talking to Members who do not know working-class conditions. We have working-class mothers who have probably brought up four or five children, and maybe half-a-dozen, living in a two-roomed house and in some cases a one-roomed house, where they had to do their own washing, baking, mangling and everything for the family until they reached 55 years of age. Then, because this Bill is taking them from Poor Law relief and bringing them under the Assistance Board, and, in fact, only doing a little earlier what we intended to do, namely, to remove Poor Law assistance altogether, hon. Members opposite have the audacity to suggest that at 55, after such a woman has slaved and given the country the population that we are decrying is declining, she should now go back again to public assistance because her youngest child has reached 16. What generous people they are.

Mr. Storey: Does the hon. Member support the fact that a woman of 36 who is perfectly able to earn her own living shall have the right to free supplementation for the remainder of her life?

Mr. Taylor: What a degrading suggestion. Because there might be a widow of 36, the hon. Member is going to condemn all widows above 36. Be generous, for goodness' sake, be generous. What do hon. Members opposite do with their children? I am not saying that their wives have not mother-love, but have their wives their children with them morning, noon and night? They have their nurses to whom the babies are handed over, governesses a little later and then the public school, and the children are away from
them practically altogether. Our children are a drag on our women all their lives. It is a life of self-sacrifice on the part of working-class wives to bring up a family, and yet hon. Members opposite would put them back again on public assistance. I hope that the Minister will in this case stand by the Amendment, and he will at least, I am sure, have the support of Members on this side and a considerable number of Members opposite.

Mr. Etherton: The hon. Member has made an appeal to generosity and to sentiment. [An HON. MEMBER: "To justice, and not to generosity."] With great respect, this is not a matter in which generosity is in dispute at all. The Amendment which the Minister proposes in his desire to be conciliatory creates an administrative anomaly. There is no question here of the quantum of money which is to be paid in any particular instance, because the money in any case will be precisely the same. It is a question of out of which administrative pocket the money shall come. At the present time, when the whole question is under examination and when we are asked to implement as far as practicable the whole considerations which are involved in the Beveridge Report, I suggest to the Committee that it is inopportune to create this new anomaly. This is not an appropriate time to deal with this problem bit by bit. The Amendment, as it is proposed, puts no limit at all on this matter. This administrative anomaly is to be continued as the Amendment is drawn without any limitation at all. While I do not want to divide the Committee on the Amendment which the Minister has proposed I hope that between now and the Report stage he will consider that it is not proper to create this administrative anomaly in the wide sense in which his Amendment suggests, but that he will put some limit of period in his proposal.

Mr. Messer: I was a little discouraged when I heard the hon. Member for Sunderland (Mr. Storey) speak. It is difficult to believe that anybody with any appreciation of what is happening at the present time could have made such a speech. What are the anomalies which exist? Every week without exception I sit on a public assistance committee which deals with widows who come to us because they cannot get supplementary pensions. Is it not an anomaly to say that a woman who is equally entitled as anybody else should have to come to the Poor Law to try and get a supplementary pension? The hon. Member for Sunderland said what a shocking thing it was that a woman of 36 years of age should come for a supplementary pension. To choose the case of a widow who would have had to have her baby at 20 for the child to be 16 at the time she was 36 shows that he is driven to extremes, and it also shows the weakness of his case.

Mr. Storey: I was answering the hon. Member who chose the case of a widow who was 39 when she had her last baby.

Mr. Messer: Whatever may have been the reason, the facts are that, in general, a woman with three or four children is more likely to be turned 50 by the time her youngest child is 16, and what the hon. Gentleman suggests is that she should have been entitled to supplementary pension by virtue of the fact that she had children but that when her youngest child was going to work she must then, if in need of help, come back to the public assistance committee. If such a woman were to try to get a job at that age, I am afraid that she would stand very little chance.

Mr. Storey: The hon. Member must not misrepresent me. I said that while it right that a widow who was unable to earn her living should have supplementation, it was not right that every woman should have supplementation, particularly those women who were capable of earning their own living, and all that I asked was that the subject be treated as a whole and not piecemeal.

Mr. Messer: The hon. Member seems to assume that widows will gladly go for supplementary pensions, which I do not believe to be the case if they are able to obtain a job. It is possible for a woman to be self-respecting in her independence. She would prefer that rather than go for a supplementary pension. These women do not go to the public assistance committee because they like it, and they do not draw supplementary pensions irrespective of any other conditions. Will it not be the fact that there will still be inquiry to determine whether or not a woman needs a supplementary pension? It is not true that because a woman is a widow she will get it. I hope that the Minister will be firm on this point. Some time ago when I asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer a question on this subject he held out little hope of any improvement, and I now welcome the concession made by the Minister, and I hope that he will stand by it.

Mr. Molson: Hon. Members have chosen to argue the particular point on the ground of certain cases they chose to take and partly on the general ground of what they would desire to see as the


permanent settlement of this problem. I approach it from the view that this is entirely an interim Measure introduced to deal with certain points on which the right hon. Gentleman the Minister of Labour made certain promises in a recent Debate. It is a very strange thing that my right hon. Friend the Minister of Health should have slipped an Amendment in such very wide terms into the Bill on the Committee stage. I should have no grounds for complaint, and I should not complain, if it were intended that in certain hard cases the scope of the supplementary pension was to be extended. If it were only a case where it was a woman who had had children and was fairly elderly when the last of them reached the age of 16, and then the Minister had proposed an Amendment which would enable supplementation to be carried on for a period of six of 12 months during the time that she was adjusting her way of life to the changed conditions, such as looking for a job and so on, there would be no ground for complaint at all. But there is absolutely no time limit in this Amendment, and there will obviously be every inducement to a woman not to seek employment, because by doing so it will stop her from receiving a supplementary pension afterwards. We have had a pledge from the Government that they are considering the general scheme of the Beveridge proposals and that in due course a comprehensive Measure will be introduced to give effect to most of the proposals of the Beveridge Report. One of the proposals which is of immense importance and which they have accepted in principle is that widows shall not in future receive pensions merely on the ground of their widowhood. The Government, following the lines of Sir William Beveridge's Report, said that they would give special consideration to the cases of elderly widows such as those referred to by the hon. Member for South Tottenham (Mr. Messer) and that in these cases they would consider whether it was desirable or necessary to make special provision for them.
But that at this time the whole of the development of the pensions system of the country should be prejudiced by an Amendment on the Committee stage slipped into what is admittedly an interim Measure to deal with certain points appears to me extremely unwise. If some of us do not press our objections to the point of a Division to-day, I do ask that

the Minister should consider this matter again. There is admittedly a need for tapering off, so to speak, the decline in the pension at a time when the widow ceases to be responsible for her children, but between now and the Report stage I hope an Amendment will be put down which will not prejudice the future development of the pensions policy of this country.

Mrs. Hardie: I welcome sincerely this concession made to widows. Members on the other side talk about women whose children have left school automatically taking up work, but what they do not realise is that children of that age require their mother in the home to look after them. What kind of a home will it be if there is no mother there to prepare food for and look after her children of 16 or 18 who may be working? People who talk as hon. Members opposite have talked do not realise the position.

Mr. Ethertan: Does not the hon. Lady support the comprehensive scheme proposed by Sir William Beveridge?

Mrs. Hardie: Yes, with modifications We Labour women have indicated that we accept the Beveridge scheme in principle, but some of us have amendments to make with regard to widows, particularly older women. I am not one of those who have ever said that simply because a woman is a widow she should receive a pension. But, after all, this is a contributory scheme —

Mr. Molson: This is not a contributory scheme; these are supplementary pensions.

Mrs. Hardie: I am aware of that, but the Government decided, instead of increasing the basic pension to a reasonable amount, to adopt this method of supplementary pension, where need has to be proved before it can be received. I know many spinsters, and I support them in their difficulties; women over 50 find it difficult to keep their jobs. It is only during a war that older women can get work. Yet I have never heard a spinster saying that widows pensions should be taken away from them. Women are not so spiteful as some might think. What they have said is that their case should also he taken into consideration. Members talk about women of 36 with children of 16. The average age of a woman whose


youngest child is 16 is in the fifties. Why should it be thought that that woman will leave home? Who will give her a job? If the income at home was above a certain amount, she would not get a supplementary pension. Of course, I admit there are anomalies. There are bound to be when you have a niggardly scheme. I admit that widows with children a little older will not be fairly treated, and I would have liked the Government to have included them. Hon. Members opposite do not think their children are grown up at 16; they keep them at school until they are 21, and generally they are not considered capable of being married until they are of that age or over. I hope the Government will not refuse widows the right to ask for supplementary pensions when they are needed. The lot of the widow has always been hard. She has had to clean houses and do washing in order to earn a miserable pittance. It has been a long, weary fight. These women have felt humiliated. There is no need to think that the average working-class woman will ask for a supplementary pension if she is able to work and maintain her children. Members on the other side Ought to be ashamed of themselves for the callous and inhuman way in which they are talking about these people. I wish I could lead a strike of women. If I could, there would not be a large population until there were better conditions for them.

Mr. Willink: The hon. Lady the Member for Springburn (Mrs. Hardie) started her observations in a charming and moderate tone, and I was sorry when she suggested at the end that those who took another view were callous and inhuman. No attempt has been made by those who have spoken from the other side to draw a distinction between a widow in, let us say, her early forties. There is no question of a woman becoming a widow at 2o; it is a question of becoming a widow at 36, 38 or 40, being perfectly able-bodied and coming into a range of pension obligations, which is the widest possible departure from the careful scheme advanced by Sir William Beveridge, however much we may disagree about its details.

Mrs. Hardie: The Government have not accepted that scheme.

Mr. Willink: I quite appreciate that.

Mrs. Hardie: Then why quote it?

Mr. Willink: I think the hon. Lady will admit that last week I made an attempt to better the position of widows who are greatly suffering, but I sincerely feel that this is not the time to do this.
[HON. MEMBERS: "When is the time?"] Let us take the case of an able-bodied widow of 42, with a child of 17 or 18. Is she to be put, by this Amendment, into a position better than a spinster who is five years older will be in for many years to come, or a widow with no children? A widow with one, two, three or four children ought to be given six months or a year for the continuance of this measure of supplementation. I feel that this omnibus way of bringing in all widows of 36 to 6o who have had no children is an extraordinary way of handling what is one of our biggest problems connected with our social services.

Mr. Buchanan: What I like about this Bill is its provision to bring in these widows. I want to support the Government and to associate myself with my hon. Friends the Members for Springburn (Mrs. Hardie) and Morpeth (Mr. R. J. Taylor). Our complaint is not what the Government have done but that they have not gone further. To those who talk about anomalies I want to say that the whole scheme is packed with anomalies. Go to any official in London, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Southampton or Newcastle, and he will tell you that the scheme is packed with anomalies. To pick out a small anomaly and say,
That is our case," is all wrong. I agree with an hon. Member who used to sit for Doncaster.

Mr. Molson: Now The High Peak.

Mr. G. Griffiths: The hon. Member has moved to a safer seat.

Mr. Buchanan: There is no disgrace in moving to a safer seat. I have a very safe seat myself. When the hon. Member for The High Peak (Mr. Molson) said that this is an interim Measure, he was right. What have the Government done? They have not accepted all the Beveridge scheme, but they have said that they propose to implement certain things dealing with friendly and approved societies, in-


cluding old age and widows pensions. The Government must deal with this question in a larger fashion shortly after the war. What is the position of the widow now? I go further than the hon. Member for Sunderland (Mr. Storey) and say that there will be cases not of widows of 36 but of 22 or 23. You cannot argue on this subject without citing cases, because this Bill has been born out of experience. The country would revolt in many cases against not taking in the widow as the Government propose.
Take the case of a young woman who has not had a child but is going to have one. Her husband dies while she is in pregnancy, and she goes on to Poor Law relief. As soon as the child is born she comes under the Assistance Board. The child dies after a few months, and she goes back on Poor Law relief. Who could stand it? Let me put what is unfortunately happening now. I do not know how others feel when a school is bombed, but my first reaction is a feeling of great pity and sympathy for the children, and then of anger at what has been done. A school is hit, and a widow has a child or two children at school. They are killed. The next day, in addition to suffering the sorrow and anguish at what has happened, she goes back on to the Poor Law. Spinsters in 99 per cent. of cases are covered by the Bill. They may not be covered by unemployment insurance, but almost all are covered by health insurance, and that gives them a title to unemployment assistance under the Bill. But does it give it to the widow? She has no insurance background, and you propose to put her in a worse condition than that of the spinster, because 99 per cent. of spinsters have an unanswerable claim on unemployment assistance, a claim that you cannot but meet if they are unemployed. No one could defend a woman who has a child killed in an air raid falling back on to the Poor Law, but Members opposite say, "Let us wait for a year or two." They have already answered the case. They say it is an interim Measure. It is only to last for a year or two, and therefore, after the war their case is met.
If it is said that the war may last for a time, may I remind hon. Members that the Minister of Labour has power to deal with every widow without children tomorrow? For the purposes of the law a widow without a child is a single woman

as far as direction is concerned, and during the war period she can be directed by the Minister of Labour to any job that he likes until she is 60 years of age. The result is that the bogies that have been raised are already met if the Government promises are true. I would rather that we did not touch the widow at all than take her from poor relief on to assistance, shove her back, take her back and put her back again. To me, that is appalling. It is indefensible. Some say it is not fair to give them the right to a supplementary pension, and they have only the right to supplementation if there is need. They have only the same right under the Bill to assistance as a person has to Poor Law relief—the right to prove need. Under the Bill, instead of hundreds of local authorities all dealing with the widow differently, with different scales in Glasgow, Edinburgh and London, they will be dealt with in a uniform fashion,. and all will be put on a level. I trust that the Government will not be kept back from doing what I think is reasonable and just. It is said that this gives a widow, perhaps a young widow, a right for ever. A soldier's widow without children, directly her husband is killed, gets 25s. a week for life. It is a narrow border line between a man killed on service and a man killed not on service. If a man is discharged from the Army and dies without a pension, you not only deprive the widow of the 25s. a week, but, if she has no children, she must become chargeable to Poor Law relief. I think it is adding to the cruelty already suffered a blow that is almost a knockout. I ask the Committee to rise above petty things. I am simple in many ways I began to believe, perhaps wrongly, that some Conservatives were approaching the problem in a kindlier and more tolerant way than they have done before. If they err on the side of generosity, the country will thank them.

Mr. Brooke: The hon. Member, like many of his colleagues, has ranged over a number of other Amendments which they would like to see made in the general position regarding the determination of needs and the Poor Law. I want to be more modest and address myself to this Amendment. He and I are in complete agreement on one point, that the thing is full of anomalies at present and that there will be plenty


of anomalies even when the Bill is passed. The difference between him and me is that he wants to produce one more anomaly, while I want to diminish the number. The hon. Member for Morpeth (Mr. R. J. Taylor) dragged in class strife by saying that Members on this side had lived in the lap of luxury all their lives and therefore, presumably, were not qualified to judge these things. I have not lived in the lap of luxury all my life, and I suggest that it is far better to regard ourselves as all equally placed to express our views on this matter, and that those views should receive equal respect. In this Amendment there appears to be no doubt whatever that we are marking a slate which ought to be clean, because we know in our hearts that the House of Commons has the tremendous responsibility within the next 12 months or so of taking great ultimate decisions on matters raised by the Beveridge Report which are going to determine the future treatment of our people for years to come. The Amendment as it stands would prejudice that consideration. That is why I am glad that my hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland (Mr. Storey) spoke as definitely as he did. I know that softness of heart in this matter is on the side of Members opposite, but on this side we stand for fairness of treatment between one citizen and another. We believe that that is the ultimate test which the British nation wishes to be applied to these very difficult questions, and it is because I do not see how I could justify to one person in my constituency that she was not entitled to a supplementary pension because she had never had a child, though her neighbour with a grown-up family was to be entitled to one right through the years because at some previous time she had been drawing a supplementary pension when she was looking after a child, that I deplore the wide terms of the Amendment and associate myself with what my hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland has said.

Sir Cyril Entwistle: I think every speech on this side so far has been against the Amendment, and I want to make it quite clear that that does not represent the views of all on this side, because I am very heartily in favour of it, and I am not impressed by the arguments which have been put forward against it. As I see it, the argument is

that you will create more anomalies by the Amendment than already exist., The speech of the hon. Member for Gorbals (Mr. Buchanan) has quite controverted that argument by showing that there will be just as many anomalies, if not more, if the Amendment is not accepted. What, after all, is the main point at issue? The Amendment, as I understand it, is that if a widow has had children, and the children come to an age when they cease to be children in the legal sense, that is, 16, she shall then receive any further benefit from the Assistance Board rather than from public assistance. It is no good saying there may be a widow of 36 who will get the benefit of this whereas there will be widows without children of a higher age who will not. You can always find instances in which you can show anomalies. In fact, what will be the average case? It has been truly said that the widows who will get the benefit of this will be on the average over 50. The purpose of the Amendment is that they should receive their supplemental assistance under the Assistance Board, and I heartily support it.

Mr. Tinker: It is only fitting that the hon. Member for Gorbals (Mr. Buchanan) should express himself on this Amendment, because it was due to him that this flaw was found and the Government were persuaded to remedy it. Now the right hon. Gentleman finds himself in an awkward position. A number of his supporters who have been backing him up to now tell him that unless he does something different they might oppose the Bill on Third Reading. Is this the enlightened young Toryism we have heard so much about? Among the young Tories are the hon. Member for Stretford (Mr. Etherton), the hon. Member for Sunderland (Mr. Storey) and the hon. Member for The High Peak (Mr. Molson), and they are among the people who, we are told, are going to lead the Tory Party into a better land. If their effort to find a way out of giving some help to the poor widow is a sample of their young Toryism, I wonder how the public will view them. Logic chopping in cases like this does not help anybody. Perhaps in strict logic they are right, but when we come to deal with anomalies we can always find a thousand others. That being so, why not embrace all those who are affected and bring them all into the Bill? Instead of


that, hon. Members opposite say that this help should not be given because other people will raise objections and want it too.
The hon. Member for The High Peak said that they did not want to divide on this Amendment. May I ask him to challenge a Division, so that we can see what their position really is. I have been waiting all day for the chance of a Division, but we gave a pledge at our party meeting to-day that we would not divide on any of the Amendments. If, however, hon. Members opposite will call a Division, I shall be glad to go into the Lobby against them.

Mr. Wilson: Are we to understand that a decision was taken as to how all hon. Gentlemen opposite were going to vote before the Debate began?

Mr. Tinker: We decided not to vote on any of the Amendments which are in my name and the names of other hon. Members. If, however, hon. Gentlemen opposite feel that they would like to call a Division, I should be glad, because it would enable us to see what their position really is. Members opposite often threaten what they will do and then find a way out of their difficulty. I support the Minister, for I believe he has done the proper thing. What are the merits of the case? A widow with children who is entitled to a supplementary pension was, as the Bill originally stood, taken off the pension when her children reached a certain age even though her position warranted its continuance. Can anybody defend it? The Amendment says that once she gets a supplementary pension it will be wrong to take it off if her circumstances remain the same. I do not support the right hon. Gentleman very often, but on this occasion he will have my support.

Major Thorneycroft: I support my hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland (Mr. Storey). It is always easy to get up and urge the case of people who undoubtedly suffer considerable hardship. When one listens to speeches such as the able and eloquent speech of the hon. Member for Gorbals (Mr. Buchanan), one is always tempted to take that course, but I cannot do so on this occasion. Certain facts are agreed in this matter. The first is that the whole question of widows pensions is under the consideration of the

Government in connection with the Beveridge proposals. If we follow the course suggested by the hon. Member for Gorbals, we shall prejudice that consideration. We shall say to the widows that we give them a vested interest in this matter, and then, pursuing the hon. Gentleman's argument to its logical conclusion, we shall have to be prepared to say to them later that they can no longer have it. It would be not only unwise but rather cruel to give to these people, many of them in difficult circumstances, a promise which they will take as for all time and then be prepared to have to tell them afterwards that they cannot have it because the Government have come to a different decision. On this matter of widows pensions we are basing the test whether we really support the principles of the Beveridge Report. It is easy to go into the country or get up in the House of Commons and say that one supports the principles of the Beveridge Report when those principles are likely to be attractive to one's constituents. It is much harder to take many parts of the Beveridge Report which are not so attractive and say to the people, "Although these are not attractive, they are best for the community as a whole, and we beg you to accept them." Therefore I join with my hon. Friends in begging the Minister of Health not to prejudice the position but to leave this matter to be considered —I hope sympathetically, bearing in mind the many points that have been put by hon. Members opposite—as a whole with the rest of the Beveridge Report.

Mr. Ness Edwards: We have listened to an exhibition of young Toryism which I imagine would cause even Disraeli to turn in his grave. The hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for Stafford (Major Thorneycroft) does not object to the Bill; he objects to the Amendment. That is the position he has taken up. We were told in the general Debate last July that when the Government brought forward this Bill the general structure of it would fit into the general scheme they had in mind when recasting a new scheme of social assistance. The hon. and gallant Gentleman said that the Amendment was in conflict with the Beveridge Report, but is it? Did not Sir William Beveridge say, as one of the central features of his plan, that this type of person for whom no contributions had been paid under the new scheme


should come under some body like the Assistance Board called the Ministry of Social Security? This Amendment is in line with the general scheme that Beveridge has in mind in his Report.
The second point that has been raised is that the Amendment would create a further anomaly. The great anomaly, however, is in the Bill and not in the Amendment, which has been brought forward to decrease the number of anomalies. If the hon. Gentleman acts on the statement he has made and opposes the Amendment, he will be a party to the creation of a greater number of anomalies than he says will be created by the Amendment. A point that has been missed in that these women will be coming Gut of the Determination of Needs Act. Under that Act there are three categories of people—the unemployed, the old age pensioners and this new category. Is it suggested that they will not be treated if they are able to work in the same way as all the unemployed persons claiming unemployment assistance? We have not been told that by the Minister. No statement has been made as to the nature of the Regulations that will govern the receipt of the supplementary pension. As far as I can see, the Amendment and the Clause will decrease the category of persons remaining under an administration which it is proposed to abolish—the Poor Law system—and bring them under the Assistance Board, thus simplifying the problem until the Government are ready to bring forward the main scheme. If there is a Division on the Amendment it will give me great pleasure for once in my life to support the Minister of Health.

Mr. E. Brown: I seem to be in a very good position. If I> may judge from the conflicting arguments, I can be regarded as in a position of equilibrium. I was astonished to hear my hon. Friend the Member for Leigh _(Mr. Tinker) say that he was not one of my supporters. I had understood that he was one of the most loyal supporters of the Government, and why he should want to divide the Committee in war-time now that unity is the law of the House and the country, I do not understand. He will have to think again about that.

Mr. Tinker: I think that the right hon. Gentleman has misunderstood me. I said

that if it came to a Division I should support him.

Mr. Brown: I understand that. It was not the support I was objecting to but the basis on which the support was given that led me to make that friendly remark. The issue is not as simple as it has been made in this long and interesting discussion. I do not understand the heat about it. If in the course of the discussion of the numerous issues which are raised, both in fact and by implication, in the Report that has been discussed in at least half the speeches, we are not to be able to argue and put points of view honestly, whether based on logic or fact or feeling or a combination of all three, then we shall not get the scheme we ought to get. We ought not at this stage to import heat into these matters. We ought to do what we can to disentangle what are very complicated facts and apply such logic as feeling about the facts will let us apply to the facts as they come up. I have observed in a long political life that politics is determined not so much by fact or by argument as in the last resort by feelings about both fact and arguing. This is an issue on which we can get some feeling, but I do not think there is any need for that feeling in the terms of the series of Amendments —I will not say simple Amendments, but Amendments of some complexity—which I have moved on behalf of the Government. I do not understand why it should be thought that we are prejudicing the Beveridge Report except theoretically. Theoretically it may be so. We have not merely to consider the terms of the Amendments, we have not merely to consider their effect upon a particular widow, because we can all make cases in terms of strict logic if constituents are good enough to find the particular cases we want in order to illustrate our argument. A long experience of this kind of case leads me to beware of arguments founded on a particular case. I would rather look at the case first and then survey the field, and then four or five other cases may make the position seem quite different from an illustration based upon a particular case specially chosen.
Let me put this to my hon. Friends who are disturbed, as some of them are. They think that because this Amendment has been moved the fair consideration of the Beveridge Report is prejudiced. I do not think that is so. Let them consider the


effect if these Amendments are not
accepted compared with what will happen if they are. If the Amendments are not accepted, not one widow only will be affected. Many will be affected; they will not all be of one age, and they will not all be in similar circumstances. The effect will be that they will all have to be responsible to at least two administrations, first the administration of the Assistance Board — because they do not get supplementary pension at all, unless need is proved under the law through the Assistance Board, and, second, the administration of the public assistance authority. Then, to allay the fear that we may be granting something prejudicing the Beveridge Report, because it may go on for the whole of life, may I point out that widows will also have to be responsive to the powers exercised by the Minister of Labour when their children pass out of the stage in which the widow receives allowances for them, if the Minister of Labour considers that they are appropriate persons to be directed to any kind of labour? Thirdly, and I put this last because I think it is most important, the widow herself may have something to say about work before the Minister of Labour directs her. I have no doubt that the bulk of the widows to whom this Amendment is directed, will, themselves, when their children reach the age when they no longer attract allowances, seek to do their best for their country in war-time, and that should be borne in mind.
There is one other issue. There will be a number of widows who will not be in the simple position of being directed out to work for good and all. There will be widows who themselves may seek employment but who may not be successful in getting regular employment. There may be short interruptions in their employment, or short interruptions through sickness. The case put to the Government under the Bill as first drafted was this: there will be a widow receiving a supplementary pension because she is deemed to be in need, and not coming under the Minister of Labour's direction because she has children for whom she is responsible and for whom allowances are paid. Her children then pass out of that category and she is deemed by the Assistance Board to be still in need. Has she then, at that period, to cease drawing her weekly payments through the

Assistance Board and be passed back to local public assistance or not? That was the case that was made and the Government considered it; and without any prejudice to the consideration of the Beveridge Report as a whole, they came to the conclusion that these were cases that should be met. Although some of my friends may differ from us I think they will feel that the facts are such and the feelings likely to be aroused are such that the Government have made a wise decision in putting the Amendments on the Order Paper.

Amendment agreed to.

Further Amendments made:

In page 3, line 42, leave out "to her." In line 42, after "pension," insert "shall."

In page 4, line II, at the end, insert:
(2) Where, at the time when an additional allowance in respect of a child ceases to be payable to a widow as part of her widow's pension, a determination is in force granting her a supplementary pension by virtue of the foregoing Sub-section, she shall continue to be eligible for a supplementary pension unless and until either —

(a) she ceases to be entitled to receive weekly payments on account of the widow's pension; or
(b) that or some other determination granting her a supplementary pension ceases to be in force without having been replaced by a now determination granting her a supplementary pension. "—[Mr. E. Brown.]

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Clause, as amended, stand part of the Bill."

Mr. Tom Brown: I wish to ask the Minister whether, between now and the Report stage, he will consider the addition of the words "child's allowance" after the second "pension" in line 23, on page 4. I am desirous that this Bill shall carry further a principle which has already been accepted in the Workmen's Compensation Act. I refer to the widow who is left with children and with a posthumous child. I want if possible to get that widow retrospective payment of child's allowance to the date of the father's death, and I ask the Minister to consider that point. We have had evidence that the Bill is a very minor one and hardly touches the fringe of the problem. I have summed it up in this way.

The Chairman: I understand the hon. Member is raising a question of children's allowances and not orphans' pensions.

Mr. T. Brown: Yes, children's allowances.

The Chairman: Then he must confine himself to that point.

Mr. T. Brown: I will confine myself to that point. I hope that between now and the Report stage the Minister will consider inserting the words "child's allowance" after the second "pension."

Mr. Ness Edwards: I wish to reinforce the point that has been raised by my hon. Friend. Shortly it is this, that while old age pension or a widow's pension is accruing there is authority to pay a supplementary pension, but a widow's title to a supplementary pension in the case of a posthumous child does not begin to accrue until the child's allowance is paid in respect of the new born child. We are asking the Minister to consider whether he cannot do something to meet that position. There is a second point, that a widow who has a child which is in receipt of this allowance, the widow herself being in receipt of a widow's pension, may be deemed not to have a need in excess of her resources. She would have a nil determination under the provisions of this Clause. But when the child reaches the age of 16 those resources are cut off. She immediately comes within the scope for the purpose of needs, but she has never had an effective claim prior to the child becoming 16, and by this Clause she would appear to be outside the scope. I hope the Minister will make provision for those two categories of cases, which apparently are not met.

Mr. E. Brown: I should not like to give any hint that there is any possibility of dealing with that position, although I will look into it. My hon. Friend's Amendment appears to be outside the scope of the Bill, but on the other point raised I am not quite clear. I have listened to what was said and I will look at the second point my hon. Friend has put to me—not the other one—between now and a later stage, and without any bias at all.

Mr. T. Brown: We have quite a number of cases in the industrial areas in which posthumous children are born.

Mr. E. Brown: The hon. Member has misunderstood me. What was not likely to arise was the question of the orphan.

Mr. Buchanan: I feel that this Clause ought to have been extended in some way to deal with soldiers' widows. They will have a serious claim on public attention. While I congratulate my hon. Friends on having got so far, I feel that we ought to have been pressing for this Clause to be made wider still in its scope. Instead of that, hon. Members have been vying with one another to defend the Minister. Many deserving widows have been left out who ought to have been in. We have gone rather on to the defence instead of keeping up the attack. It is a good Tory claim that we, because we are simple and do not know— [Interruption]. No, let me say this seriously, that I think the soldier's widow has an unanswerable claim for something to be done for her.

Mr. Brooke: If I were to take up what the hon. Member for Gorbals (Mr. Buchanan) has been saying about soldiers' widows, I might find myself out of Order, though I was in sympathy with what I think was his intention. In order to dissipate his suggestion that any of us on this side have been playing any tricks, I want to put it on record that this Clause, in its main purpose, seems to me to be an excellent improvement of the law. It was high time that Parliament dealt with the position of the widow responsible for children. I do not think it has been done in quite the right way, and I would have preferred that action should have been taken by increasing the children's allowances; but I welcome, as I am sure all my hon. Friends on this side do, the general change which the inclusion of this Clause in the Bill will effect.

Mr. David Adams: I should like to say how grateful I am for all the Amendments submitted by the Minister. He has improved the Measure in two main ways. In the first place, the widow will not be required to solicit public assistance, but automatically her rights will be safeguarded. Secondly, surely expenditure on pensions ought to be a matter for the State rather than for the local authority. The burden of pensions in the poorer areas such as the County of Durham is an important item in local expenditure. The Government are certainly travelling in the right direction when they proceed tentatively, and in a small measure, to relieve the local authorities of that burden. We look to an extension of that as the measure proceeds, and when we have the


fuller pension scheme under the Beveridge Report.

Question, "That the Clause, as amended, stand part of the Bill,"put, and agreed to.

CLAUSE 4.—(Non-contributory old age pensions (blind persons and Isle of Man).)

Lieut.-Colonel Sir Ian Fraser (Lonsdale): I beg to move, in page 4, line 41, at the end, to insert "or by any voluntary agency."
The Amendment seeks to meet a very small point, which nevertheless interests a great many people. Some years ago Parliament decided that the old age pension should be paid to blind persons at the age of 40. I am speaking now of the pension which was not contributory and still survives at age 70 in normal cases. A person at the age of 70 was thought to be no longer able to work, and the blind person round about the age of 40 is also very unlikely to be trainable. It was thought that Parliament should pay him a pension, since he was in very much the same position as the ordinary old person. Instead of the blind person obtaining the benefit of that change, the local authorities reduced, to an equivalent amount, that which they were paying to blind persons under the Blind Persons Act, 1920. Where a local authority has set up a scale to give a domiciliary grant to blind persons unable to earn money to live on, and where it exceeded a certain amount, the Customs and Excise, who manage these pensions, have paid less than 10s., sometimes 6s. or 4s., or sometimes nothing.
The Clause will please a great many blind persons and those who are interested in their welfare, and I welcome it, but it will be much better if the words "or any voluntary agency" were added. There are 95 voluntary agencies, many of them pensions societies set up by bequests and trusts, paying small pensions for blind people of 5s. or 10s. a week. Other grants have been given by local people to particular blind people. There are also some general funds which are available for all blind people and are used in special cases where the trustees feel that something is necessary above and beyond what the local authority and the State can provide. If the Clause is passed, the old muddle between the local authority and

the State will have been removed, but the effect of voluntary grants will still be that the local authority or the Customs will reduce the amount of pensions accordingly. The voluntary money will, in fact, be used for the benefit of the ratepayers and taxpayers. That was not the intention of the donors. It may mean reducing the income of some 7,000 families, because there are 7,000 blind people who receive financial assistance from those various quarters. Many thousands of pounds are distributed annually by those charitable trusts, many of which go back into our history. It would be a pity not to make it clear that this kind of voluntary financial assistance can go on and will not merely be a relief to the rates.

Mr. Glenvil Hall: I hope that the Minister will see his way to accept this Amendment. He has been very sticky up to now and stood fast throughout the whole day—[An HON. MEMBER: "No."] —except for Amendments which were agreed upon at the end of the Second Reading. The suggestion made by the hon. and gallant Member who has moved the Amendment is very reasonable. We are not dealing with public funds here. The money from voluntary agencies will have been raised for this purpose with the intention of giving a little extra to people who are suffering under a shocking disability. It would be very unfortunate if it appeared that any money we may be giving with one hand is being taken away with the other, and I therefore hope that the Minister will see his way to accept the Amendment.

Mr. Messer: I agree with the object of the Amendment, and I hope that the Mover will accomplish his intention. As I understand the Clause, it means that any small sum of money which may be granted by a local authority in the way of a domiciliary grant shall not be calculated when a pension is granted, but that will not deprive the local authority from deciding what their liability is going to be. All that the Amendment will do is to secure that the amount of the pension shall be paid without regard to the voluntary assistance.

Sir I. Fraser: I am aware of deficiencies in the Amendment, due to my lack of time to study fully the implications of the Bill. Moreover, the Financial Secretary to the Treasury was good enough to


give me a certain amount of assistance. I shall be very glad if he can find it possible to grant this Amendment.

The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Assheton): I think the Committee understand the problem. The object of Clause 4 is to remove an anomaly, or what I might almost call an absurdity of the law, as it now stands. As I understand the matter, the non-contributory pensioner gets 10s. a week so long as his means do not exceed £65 a year. If the local authority give more support than 25s. a week, it merely reduces the sum which the Customs and Excise should pay. The whole Committee will wish to make an alteration in that arrangement. The hon. and gallant Member for Lonsdale (Sir I. Fraser) has put down an Amendment to ensure that local authorities disregard pensions or allowances granted by voluntary associations when assessing the amount of assistance given to blind persons. As has already been pointed out, the Amendment does not altogether secure what the Mover wishes to secure, and I should like to suggest to the Committee that it is not necessary for the Amendment to be accepted nor for an Amendment on the lines which my hon. and gallant Friend would put down in order to complete the proposal which he wishes to make. Local authorities have entirely unfettered discretion to give as much assistance as they think fit. It would be unreasonable to require a local authority to disregard voluntary allowances to any unspecified amount. It would break into the whole system and make the position of the local authorities most difficult. They have a free discretion, and I think the Committee will agree it would be much better to leave the matter like that.

Sir I. Fraser: The hon. Gentleman is being most friendly, and also most ingenious, because he is not answering the Amendment which I put upon the Paper and which seeks to make it impossible for his Customs and Excise to reduce the State pension to very small dimensions. He has put forward a proposal that the local authorities should not do the same thing, but he has not shown why the Customs House should do it. Anyway, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Clause stand part of the Bill."

Mr. Messer: I wish to express my pleasure in welcoming this Clause, but I would not be human if I did not say that as far back as 1928 I asked for this to be done, and I am not ashamed of the part that I took in the passing of the Act of 1938. Blind people get their incomes from a variety of sources. Some who are unemployable either through becoming blind late in life or from some other cause can receive what is known as a domiciliary grant from a county council or a county borough council charged with the administration of the Blind Persons Act. The amount of the domiciliary grant differs according to the generosity of the particular local authority. I cannot blame the local authorities entirely for it, because they are not all in exactly the same position.
Take, for instance, the administrative county of Lancashire. It has a population, roughly, of 2,000,000, and a 1d. rate raises just over £40,000. In the administrative county of Middlesex, roughly with a population of 2,000,000, a id. rate raises £84,000. Therefore, it is not so easy for Lancashire to be generous as it is for Middlesex. Nevertheless, Lancashire boasts a very generous blind persons scheme of 35s. a week, and it is not altogether to the credit of Middlesex. These grants to blind persons should not depend. upon the accident of the person living one side or another of a county border, and I have tried for a long time to get that matter rectified. What does this Clause do? It says that so far as the pension is concerned, the pension authorities shall have no regard to the amount which may be paid by the local authority to the blind person, but it does not say that a local authority shall not take into consideration the amount they are getting by way of pension. I think that the attention of the Minister should be drawn to that weakness with a view to seeing whether something cannot be done to remedy it.
If there is one class of the community which needs attention it is the blind persons. I do not think that blind persons should be in the Bill at all. I think there should be a special blind persons scheme. When dealing with old age pensioners we are dealing with people who have had a period of employment in their lives and


freedom and independence. They have been able to enjoy some measure of the results of their activity, and therefore their poverty has been a spasmodic matter, not continuous. This Bill deals with pensions which have no relation to the same need as that of the blind persons. The blind person is poor because he or she is blind. Because of that permanent factor, they should be treated as a separate class. I agree that this proposal is a slight improvement but organised blind persons, knowing the interest I have taken in their great problem, approached me, and wanted me to put down another Amendment. I said to them, "Do not ask me to put down a lot of Amendments to this Bill, because I put down a lot to the Nurses Bill, and I rather think I did more harm than good to the nurses. Let us leave it to the generosity of the Minister. Let us present our case to him without wasting a lot of time on Amendments. Let him know what those who speak for blind people think should be done. Their needs should be recognised as requiring special attention." I hope that as a result of what I have said the Minister will give attention to this matter. There is no other section of the community that can be compared with those people who are condemned to eternal darkness, to an everlasting night, that knows no breaking dawn, no lightness; who hear, but do not see the cause of that which they hear. They are robbed of the most precious possession that nature has given us. They wake in the morning without knowing it is morning. They never know the peace of the setting sun. Our sympathy should be sufficient to justify us in regarding blind people as worthy of special attention. I hope they will get it.

Mr. Hogg: I do not wish to take up the time of the Committee, but I feel that someone on this side should reinforce what has just been said, with only this qualification, that some of us think the whole position of cripples generally should also be considered when the Minister is dealing with that question.

Mr. E. Brown: I would not like any misunderstanding to arise. Of course, we shall take the greatest care to weigh the things which have been said on this subject from both sides. I would like to add one thing. I am not quite so sure as my hon. Friend about one thing he said.

There is one other section of the community which does not always get the sympathy it should have—the totally deaf. I make that qualification—otherwise I am grateful to my hon. Friends.

Question, "That the Clause stand part of the Bill," put, and agreed to.

CLAUSE 5.—(Expenditure out of moneys provided by Parliament.)

Mr. E. Brown: I beg to move, in page 5, line 29, at the end, to insert:
and the continuance of such supplementary pensions after the said allowance ceases to be so payable.

Mr. Ness Edwards: There are two short points I would like to make. First, in line 26, in making provision for the payment of supplementary pensions to widows, to whom an additional allowance is paid it seems to me we are leaving out the question of the amount in this sense; the provision of an old age allowance is a statutory provision. If that is so, it seems to me that this Clause requires to be drawn wider, otherwise you will have widows drawing a supplementary pension, which will be less than the supplementary pensions provided for old age pensioners. A woman aged 59 will get so much and when she is 60, will get 2s. more. I should be glad if the Minister would look at that.

The Deputy-Chairman (Mr. Charles Williams): Is the hon. Member speaking on the Amendment or on the Question "That the Clause stand part of the Bill?"

Mr. Edwards: On the Question, "That the Clause stand part of the Bill."

The Deputy-Chairman: We have not yet disposed of the Amendment.

Amendment agreed to.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Clause, as amended, stand part of the Bill."

Mr. Ness Edwards: There is a second point in addition to that which I have already mentioned. The Clause says:
additions to a person's supplementary pension in respect of periods after an old age or widow's pension began to accrue to that person …
That is line 30 and the following two lines. It seems to me that this also requires a wider drawing, if it is to include the case of a posthumous child. The widow will not be entitled to a supplementary pension until her child is born.


There is a period between the date of birth and the date on which the allowance is received in respect of the child. For that period, provision should be made in this Clause, and I would be glad if the Minister would look at the point.

Mr. E. Brown: I am not sure whether the hon. Member is right but we will look at it. There will be stages in another place. I can give no pledge except that I will look at it.

Question, "That the Clause, as amended, stand part of the Bill," put, and agreed to.

CLAUSE 6.—(Definition of "appointed day.")

Mr. Tom Brown: I beg to move, in page 6, line 14, at the end, to insert:
being a date not later than the date fixed under paragraph (b) of this Section.
I have no intention of detaining the Committee unduly. I move this Amendment in order to provide the Minister with an opportunity of making clear what is meant by the words at the end of paragraph (c). The words in the Bill read as follows:
…it means such date as may be appointed by Order of the Minister of Health.
I want to put one or two points very briefly. We have had experience of Orders issued by Government Departments. They are very difficult to understand. That has been admitted on all sides of the Committee but as a rule, Orders tell us the date from which they will operate. In this case, the issue of the Order depends upon the will of the Minister. I think the provisions of the Bill in this instance ought to be more
definite. The benefits of this Bill in this paragraph relate to blind persons, and while these benefits will not be very important to blind people, they ought to have some assurance that they will not be forgotten in the vagueness of the paragraph. In some Clauses of the Bill benefit will accrue to the recipients
on the appointed day, but within one month from the passing of this Act.
I am referring to page 2, lines 16 and 17. The "appointed day" occurs on various pages of this Bill but in this paragraph with which I am dealing there is no mention of anything but
such date as may be appointed by Order of the Minister of Health.

I think it has been said that this Bill falls very far short of what we desire and to my mind never in the field of social reform have so many poor and needy people waited so long for so little. I appeal to the Minister to tell us that the benefits which have been conceded and will be conceded by the passing 'of this Bill, will begin from a specified date.

Miss Horsbrugh: I can give the answer quite shortly. They will begin as soon as possible. There will have to be, as the hon. Member will know, consultation with the local authorities, in respect of both the blind persons and the others, to see how quickly they can get arrangements made, and my right hon. Friend wants it done as soon as possible.

Mr. Silkin: I do not see why the hon. Lady cannot be a little more specific. Paragraphs (a) and (b) are fairly specific. They say it comes into operation as soon as the Regulations become effective. All that is being asked is that (c) and (d) should not be later than the date of the Regulations becoming effective. Could not my hon. Friend give that assurance that it may be earlier but will not be later than the date on which the Regulations become effective?

Miss Horsbrugh: We want if possible to have it at the same time but we do not want to put in that it must be the same date, in case the arrangements with the local authorities are not ready.

Mr. T. Brown: In view of what has been said I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment. I hope, having voiced my opinion, there will be no undue procrastination.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clauses 7 and 8 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

NEW CLAUSE.—(Application of s. 17 of Old Age and Widows' Pensions Act, 1940.)

Section seventeen of the Old Age and Widows Pensions Act, 1940 (which provides for compensation to officers of public assistance authorities) shall, with the necessary adaptations, apply to any officer or servant of a local authority which is a public assistance authority who suffers any direct pecuniary loss by reason of the determination of his appointment or the diminution of his emoluments in consequence of the passing of this Act in the same manner as it applies


to any officer or servant who suffers any pecuniary loss or diminution of emoluments in consequence of the passing of that Act.—[Mr. Brooke.]

Brought up, and read the First time.

Mr. Brooke: I beg to move, "That the Clause be read a Second time."
It is for the removal of doubts that I am moving the insertion of this Clause. The Committee will remember that when supplementary pensions were introduced in 1940 a Clause was inserted in the Act to safeguard the position of the staffs of public assistance authorities against being prejudiced by any action we took in this House at the time. This Bill now before us is likely to diminish the number of persons who will be applicants for public assistance, so the same situation will recur on a much smaller scale. I will cut my remarks short in the hope that the Minister will assure me either that he will accept this new Clause, or else that the position of these men and women is already covered under the existing legislation without the necessity for a New Clause to deal with them.

Mr. Burden: I wish briefly to support the case so admirably put before the Committee by the hon. Member for West Lewisham (Mr. Brooke). The principle of compensation for loss of office has been accepted and included in quite a long series of Measures. Therefore I feel it is not necessary to argue the case for compensation as such. However, in administrative changes there is always a risk that people who have rendered excellent service may find themselves redundant or their positions worsened and it is to meet that possibility that this new Clause is submitted to the Committee. I hope the Minister will be disposed to accept the new Clause or give the Committee some assurance which will meet the justifiable apprehensions felt by a number of excellent people in the public service at the present time.

Mr. E. Brown: I can give my hon. Friend an assurance that the new Clause is entirely unnecessary. The only Clause which could conceivably mean loss of office is Clause 3, which reduces the number of persons eligible for outdoor relief and therefore could result in loss of office for some officials. But provision is made in Sub-section (4) of Clause 3 that the Clause shall be construed as one with

Part 11 of the Act of 1940, and thus attracts the provisions of Section 17.

Mr. Brooke: I am grateful to the Minister for putting that assurance on record. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Clause.

Motion and Clause, by leave, withdrawn.

NEW CLAUSE.—(Determination of needs (outdoor relief).)

(i)The maximum aggregate value of the money and investments treated as capital assets which may be treated, in granting outdoor relief, as equivalent to a specified weekly income by virtue of sub-paragraph (ii) of paragraph (c) of sub-section (i) of section one of the Transitional Payments (Determination of Need) Act, 1932, shall be increased from three hundred pounds to four hundred pounds, and the weekly income to which they may be treated as equivalent shall be reduced from one shilling to sixpence for every complete twenty-five pounds; and accordingly the said sub-paragraph

(ii) shall have effect as if there were substituted for the words "three hundred "the words "four hundred" and for the words "one shilling" the word "sixpence."

(2) This section shall come into operation on the appointed day.—[Sir A. Maitland.]

Brought up, and read the First time.

Sir A. Maitland: I beg to move, "That the Clause be read a Second time."
We have been told that this Bill was brought forward to remove certain anomalies. If it passes in its present form, it will create another anomaly. You will have a situation with regard to administration applying to one section of the poor and being denied to another. To-day we discussed the adequacy or otherwise of the amount to be taken into account by a municipal authority in determining need. The Committee felt that the total assets allowed should be £400, and that the income on that should be regarded as equal to 6d. for every £25 The rule under which this provision was originally framed dealt primarily with the Assistance Board. Rules were framed in order that there should be something like equality throughout the country in dealing with need. It comes about that when the public assistance authorities have to decide the amount of assistance which shall be given, they have to make reference to the capital assets which the applicant has and the income which he is presumed to derive from those assets. The sole purpose of the Clause is to make sure that the same kind of test shall be applied by public assistance authorities as by the
Assistance Board. This is not in the


nature of an epoch-making Clause; it is a very modest one, and I hope it will be accepted.

Mr. Silkin: As my hon. Friend has said, this Clause is designed to remove an anomaly. I do not suppose my right hon. Friend is worried very much about that, because he has created quite a number of anomalies in the Bill.

Mr. E. Brown: And removed a lot.

Mr. Silkin: He has retained a good many, and I still hope there is one particular anomaly that he will look at again; but if he accepts this Clause, there will be one anomaly less, so I suppose he will accept it.

Miss Horsbrugh: My right hon. Friend has great pleasure in accepting the Clause, but not merely because it will remove an anomaly. There are anomalies on all sides in dealing with this subject. However, as my hon. Friend has said, it is a modest Clause.

Mr. Douglas: I am sure we are all delighted to hear that statement. One can understand a little more perhaps the readiness of the right hon. Gentleman to accept the Clause when one realises that the cost will fall on the local authorities, and not on his Department.

Mr. E. Brown: I am sure that the local authorities will carry their responsibilities with very great pleasure.

Sir A. Maitland: May I thank my right hon. Friend and the Parliamentary Secretary?

Question put, and agreed to.

Clause read a Second time, and added to the Bill.

FIRST SCHEDULE. —(Consequential Amendments of the Eighth Schedule to the Unemployment Act,1934, as set out with modifications in the Second Schedule to the Old Age and Widows' Pensions Act, 1940.)

Amendments made:

In page 7, leave out lines 23 to 25, and insert:
other period during which she is not eligible for a supplementary pension.

In line 36, leave out "such."

In line 36, after "allowance," insert "in respect of a child."—[Mr. E. Brown.]

Schedule, as amended, agreed to.

Second Schedule agreed to.

Bill reported, with Amendments; as amended, considered; read the Third time, and passed.

Orders of the Day — CATERING WAGES BILL

Lords Amendments considered, and agreed to.

Orders of the Day — PUBLIC PETITIONS

Ordered,
That the Special Report from the Committee on Public Petitions be considered on the first Sitting Day after 13th June."—[Sir Edward Campbell.]

The remaining Orders were read, and postponed.

Orders of the Day — ADJOURNMENT

Resolved, "That this House do now adjourn."—[Mr. Boulton.]